A rancher outside Kansas City put collars on 30 cows and went from moving them every two days to every four or five days on the same ground, at the same cow condition. That is double the carrying capacity overnight, and we spent most of this episode on how virtual fencing works and what it costs.
The collar runs $280 plus a subscription. Users report getting back 8 to 10 hours a week. The GPS is accurate to about 4 or 5 feet, which is roughly one fat cow in any direction. One challenger cow averaged 800 sound warnings a day for three weeks, about one every 30 seconds she was awake, while other cows in the same group got one a week. When a cow does get out, she is back inside 80 percent of the time within 5 to 10 minutes, because her friends are still there. There are around 6,000 of these collars in North America and they only started selling here in June.
Then we put the skeptic hat on. What happens to your herd if the company runs out of money. Who owns the data. Why he tells customers to never trust a virtual fence alone along a highway, because the liability is too big. And what happens to cattlemen when Silicon Valley decides cattle are a robotics problem.
Also in this one: an engineer who quit a VP title in Norway, visa on Monday and a plane on Friday, a farmhouse built in 1318 and the man who will not give it up, why so many farmers keep a town job for the insurance, and what a Norwegian thinks of American water, groceries, and youth sports.
Low profit is the one problem every farmer in every country has in common. The other is that not one of them thinks he owns the land.
What do you want us to dig into next week? Drop it in the comments and we read them.
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THIS EPISODE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY:
● Propane Farm Research Program ➱ https://propane.com/farmfunding
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Fencing cattle without building any fence
04:00 A Norwegian engineer lands in Kansas
06:24 The engineer who got pulled into sales
07:43 Back from paternity leave to 30% cuts
08:57 The gala dinner that changed everything
12:35 The news story that started a company
14:05 Seven engineers, a prototype in 2 months
18:57 Propane Farm Research Program
19:28 Their US hire quit before he ever moved
21:20 Dying broke with a bank of good stories
23:10 Visa on Monday, gone by Friday
27:32 A float trip with people who bought nothing
33:48 Kruger Dunning and the Mountain of Stupidity
43:18 So what is virtual fencing, exactly
44:18 A sound first, then a shock she remembers
51:46 One cow tested it 800 times in a day
54:42 Splitting 100 acres into 5 acre paddocks
01:00:19 Carrying capacity doubled overnight
01:04:01 Cell service, GPS, and 4 feet of drift
01:10:20 Most escapees walk back in within 10 minutes
01:14:53 $280 a collar and 10 hours a week back
01:19:22 Never trust it alone along a highway
01:22:34 Every farmer, every country, same problem
01:33:21 A farmhouse that was built in 1318
01:34:24 When Silicon Valley calls cattle robotics
01:49:16 The Skeptic Block
01:50:03 What if the company runs out of money
01:52:10 Who actually owns your cattle data
01:55:14 Only 6,000 collars, and why pick them
02:10:05 Raising robust kids on purpose
02:13:40 Rapid Fire
02:16:16 Tip of the Hat
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