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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Vet. Sci.

Sec. Animal Behavior and Welfare

Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1637190

This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Precision Livestock Management for Grazing Ruminant SystemsView all 9 articles

Incorporating virtual fencing to manage yearling steers on extensive rangelands: spatial behavior, growth performance, and enteric methane emissions

Provisionally accepted
Edward  James RaynorEdward James Raynor1*Anna  M ShadboltAnna M Shadbolt1Melissa  K JohnstonMelissa K Johnston2David  AugustineDavid Augustine2Justin  DernerJustin Derner3John  P RittenJohn P Ritten4Nathan  D DelayNathan D Delay4Pedro  H.V. CarvalhoPedro H.V. Carvalho1Juan  VargasJuan Vargas1Sara  E PlaceSara E Place1Kim  R Stackhouse-LawsonKim R Stackhouse-Lawson1
  • 1AgNext, Department of Animal Sciences, College of Agricultural Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, United States
  • 2USDA-ARS Rangeland Resources and Systems Research, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States, Fort Collins, United States
  • 3USDA-ARS Rangeland Resources and Systems Research, Cheyenne, United States, Cheyenne, Wyoming, United States
  • 4AgNext, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States, Fort Collins, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

We examined the growth rates, gas flux, and movement behavior of beef cattle within a targeted grazing experiment in shortgrass steppe, implemented using virtual fence (VF). Over the 110-d grazing season (mid-May to early September), one hundred twenty British-breed stocker steers (~12 months of age; body weight 382 kg ± 35) were grazed with VF management (active collars) or free-range (non-active collars) in two sets of 130 ha pasture pairs (i.e., VF-managed vs. control), dominated by cool-season native grasses or a diverse mosaic of native grasses. Automated head chamber systems (AHCS) assessed the gas flux of steers in each pasture, while GPS collars recorded the locations of individual animals and governed animal distribution if the VF system was activated. Within each pair of pastures, one herd of steers was VF-managed, where multiple VF-delineated sub-pastures were created to focus steer distribution on specific native plant communities in an attempt to optimize access to greater quality forage throughout the grazing season for increasing production efficiency of these steers, whereas the control pastures, steer distribution was not managed with VF and animals had access to the entire pasture for the grazing season. In the cool-season grass-dominated pasture, cattle in the VF management reduced (p ≤ 0.03) enteric methane (CH4) emissions and growth rate compared to control steers. In the diverse mosaic pasture, cattle managed with VF increased (p = 0.03) enteric CH4 emissions per unit of production and had similar (p ≥ 0.09) growth rates compared to control steers. These findings suggest that targeted grazing, implemented via VF technology, can have varying effects on methane emissions of yearling steers grazing during the summer grazing season in shortgrass prairie, depending on the type of plant community and its production efficiency in extensive rangelands.

Keywords: Animal Distribution, DATA FUSION, GPS and AHCS, rangeland enteric emissions, Shortgrass steppe, spatial distribution management, virtual fencing technology and GreenFeed

Received: 28 May 2025; Accepted: 25 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Raynor, Shadbolt, Johnston, Augustine, Derner, Ritten, Delay, Carvalho, Vargas, Place and Stackhouse-Lawson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Edward James Raynor, AgNext, Department of Animal Sciences, College of Agricultural Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, United States

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