Breaking Free: eShepherd™ transforms break feeding for Hawke’s Bay farmers

Hawke’s Bay bull beef farmers Gemma and Mathew Barham wanted to escape the daily grind of break feeding in winter on their 1,020 hectares.

They turned to Gallagher’s eShepherd virtual fencing system to gain their time back and increase the profitability of their stock.  “We implemented eShepherd on our farm to automate our break fencing, but it’s had so many other benefits for our operation too”, comments Farm Owner/Operator, Gemma Barham.

The Barhams run 1,300 ewes, approximately 802 R1 bulls, and about 250 R2 steers on Mangatarata Station, seven kilometres east of Waipukurau. They grow service bulls for the dairy beef breeding market, with the bulls arriving on the farm as weaners from a regular clutch of breeders.

The couple carries most breeds, including Jersey, Hereford, Angus, and a few Charolais. They send their bulls to dairy farmers all over New Zealand for breeding high-value dairy beef.

They have been on the family farm for 19 years, and Gemma says break feeding, particularly in winter, can be monotonous.

“Last winter was dire for us. It felt like Groundhog Day when Mat would go out to shift the fences. I started looking for an alternative and came across Gallagher’s eShepherd neckbands,” she says.

eShepherd uses neckbands to train cattle to remain within a virtual fencing barrier, allowing farmers to move and contain livestock from their laptop or phone.

By using virtual fencing to divide pasture into breaks, Gemma had found a way to manage their livestock more conveniently. The couple’s mobs of bulls and steers could now be guided to specified grazing cells of pasture and winter crops, without the need for physically moving fencelines back and forth.

Gemma immediately recognised the opportunity for streamlining their operation. They started with 100 neckbands and within the first week could see the impact.

"We ordered 100 neckbands and Mathew put them on a couple of mobs of Jersey bulls,” says Gemma. “We would check on them, and they were behind the virtual fence line every time! It was quite funny seeing them all lined up waiting for the next break to open.”

Harnessing eShepherd has freed up Mat’s time, allowing him the odd sleep-in… until 7am, she laughs.

Mat is still out on the farm every day but using virtual fencing has allowed him to focus on other crucial jobs, while removing some of the hassle that comes with winter grazing.

“This season, I haven’t had mud up to my backside moving portable fencing. We’ll pre-schedule the cattle movements from the office,” says Mat, referring to the fence scheduling feature within the eShepherd app.

“I schedule the break for all eight mobs to update at 6am every morning. By the time I’m driving around the farm, they are already on their new break – every morning by 7am.”

eShepherd is also lightening the load for the wider team at Mangatarata Station.

“Our staff don’t have to be out there all the time shifting fences,” Gemma adds. “Mat can monitor it from home to see where fences have been shifted. He can also programme the fences to move, setting up consecutive breaks.”

In addition to the convenience and time-saving advantages from automating break feeding, Gemma and Mat have been thrilled to measure  greater efficiency in pasture management resulting in animal weight gain.

“They're putting on more weight because they get fresh pickings every day with the regular break fence moving, and they are eating the full break. That’s been a massive positive,” says Gemma.

While the farm was fortunate to sustain only minimal  damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023, Gemma says the virtual fencing gives her peace of mind. By minimising physical fencing, maintaining control and the safety of livestock in an extreme weather event is more feasible.

Making the decision to expand their original order of 100 neckbands was a no-brainer for Gemma, "we were so happy with the results we just pushed GO and ordered another 300."

Currently, three-quarters of the Barhams' service bulls have eShepherd neckbands, with plans  to extend it to all their mobs in the future.