Ease of use
What kind of farmer am I? I like to keep things simple. The farm needs to run as efficiently as possible, and I hate wasting time on pointless tasks. Collie helps with that; it makes strip grazing very straightforward. The app is quite simple. If you can handle a smartphone, you’ll be fine. It’s not difficult. And at the very least, you don’t have to head out in the rain to move wires. I’d actually been thinking about this kind of system for ten years.
Labour savings
Our paddocks are 1250 metres long. If you have to put up wires along the entire length, that takes up a fair bit of time. You’ll earn that time back. Look, as long as your dad is still walking around moving the wires for free, it’s never ‘too expensive’. But once he’s not there anymore, you’ll start thinking very differently. If you account for your own labour at a realistic hourly rate, you’ll earn back the investment very quickly.
Hassle-free support & improvements
They’re constantly working on improvements. We saw that on some farms, cows were getting sores from the collar buckle. That was picked up, and the collars were adapted accordingly. Transponders are also being optimised all the time. If we see something and pass it on, it’s picked up as quickly and smoothly as possible.
Savings on feed, diesel and slurry spreading
We don’t keep everything in precise figures, but my feeling is definitely that they get more milk from fresh grass. And the moment a cow gets more milk from grass, you save on supplementary feed. Everything that cow eats out in the field, you don’t have to bring to the feed fence with the tractor. Plus, she spreads the slurry on the land herself, so you don’t have to go out with the tanker anymore. Those are a few savings right there.
Nitrogen, urea and grass utilisation
With set-stocking, cows basically just graze the tips of the grass on a large area. Before, in the autumn, we saw them constantly grazing those tips, meaning they were getting far too much protein. Now with Collie, they graze the entire plant down to 20 centimetres. You have much less unhealthy protein at that point, so the urea levels don't shoot up into the 20s or 40s. We’ve measured this. Urea causes higher emissions, and we want to limit those emissions. This system helps with that.
Animal health
In 2020, we had to deal with a lungworm infection. That can be traced directly to the fact that cows graze the same paddock for a long period, which keeps that worm cycle going. With strip grazing, cows are on a specific strip of land for a relatively short period. So the worm cycle isn't maintained. I see that as a major benefit.
Herd calm
The cows handle it very calmly and well. You see them grazing in a line along the strip, exactly where they get fresh grass, rather than wandering all over the paddock. When a new cow enters the herd, they adapt very quickly. They learn very fast, because they basically just copy the other cows.
Nature management
For ground-nesting birds, you can just drop a pin on the map so the cows don't walk over the nest. That makes managing waders a lot easier. And the same goes for ditch banks. You can just say: I don't want the cow walking outside the ditch edge. You fence it off very easily and the cow stays out. You become much more flexible in how you manage nature.
Back to square one
Not every farmer is jumping at this straight away. But it was exactly the same back in the day with the switch from hand-milking to the milking machine. I see the same thing happening now. If we didn't have the collars anymore, I’m afraid we’d have to go back to set-stocking. I have zero intention of messing around with physical wires and dragging posts through the paddock every day. You'd just be back to square one.
