Virtual Fencing, Cattle Inventory, Smoke

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Cattle Chat

Episode: Virtual Fencing, Cattle Inventory, Smoke
Date: March 7, 2025
Host: BCI Cattle Chat Team
Guest: Dr. Juliana Ranches, Assistant Professor & Beef Extension Specialist, Oregon State University

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Overview

This episode of Cattle Chat features an in-depth discussion with Dr. Juliana Ranches about new and evolving topics in the beef industry. The conversation centers on the adoption and application of virtual fencing, current U.S. cattle inventory numbers and their implications, and emerging research on how wildfire smoke affects cattle health. The discussion offers both practical insights and emerging research findings, all in a collegial, informative tone.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Virtual Fencing in the Beef Industry

[03:14 – 11:59]

• Technology Overview

  • Virtual fencing involves GPS-enabled collars that create invisible boundaries for cattle using satellite data and custom software.
  • When an animal approaches a boundary, it receives an audio cue (beep); if it persists, it gets an electric shock similar to dog collars but based on GPS, not wires.
  • "Basically... it's like a dog shock collar type of thing, but it's based on a satellite coordinate rather than something in the ground." – Dr. Juliana Ranches [04:25]

• Adoption & Suitability

  • Use is growing, especially in the Western U.S., due to logistical and regulatory challenges post-wildfire, where permanent fences are costly or impossible.
  • Traditional fencing lacks flexibility, whereas virtual fencing allows boundaries to be changed as needed.

• Costs & Requirements

  • Example (Vence® system): approx. $40 per collar annually, $10 per collar battery, and $10,000–$15,000 per tower (connects collars to satellites/software).
  • Some conservation money available to offset infrastructure costs [05:16].

• Applications

  • Enables management-intensive grazing on large rangelands where cross-fencing is impractical.
  • Can keep cattle out of sensitive areas (e.g., riparian zones) and track their movements more carefully.

• Limitations & Open Questions

  • Herd dynamics: It remains unknown if only a percentage need collars or if all do. Early studies suggest if forage is scarce, uncollared animals (or calves) may lead others to leave the virtual boundary.
  • Legal considerations:
    • At least 4–7 days of training required for effectiveness.
    • Legality varies by state, especially in regions with open range and highways nearby.
    • Bulls may be less responsive to virtual fences, especially if cows in heat are across boundaries.

• Memorable Moment:

  • "I have one cow that might need two or three collars just to keep her where she’s supposed to be." – Brad White [10:01]

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2. U.S. Cattle Inventory: Numbers and Market Implications

[11:59 – 16:16]

• Latest USDA Report (Jan 2025):

  • Overall cattle inventory is down 1%, now at the lowest level since 1961 (approx. 86.5 million head).
  • Beef cattle: 27.9 million head (beef cows), also down 1%.
  • Cattle on feed: down 1% year-over-year.
  • Replacement heifers: down 1% as well, not indicating herd growth.
  • Dairy herds: mostly steady, possibly up by a small fraction.

• Implications:

  • "We keep waiting for when people are going to start retaining heifers, which then the actual cow number growth lags a while, a couple of years. But my understanding is we have not seen anything that indicates that cow numbers are going up soon." – Bob Larson [15:15]
  • High feeder calf prices make it attractive for producers to sell heifers rather than retain them for herd expansion.
  • Despite herd shrinkage, beef production hasn’t dropped as much because cattle weights and days on feed have increased.

• Outlook:

  • The hosts foresee potential shifts in heifer retention patterns in the near future, possibly as early as later in 2025 or beyond.

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3. Smoke Exposure and Cattle Health

[16:16 – 22:43]

• Background:

  • Wildfires have become more common in western states, affecting large swathes of rangeland and exposing cattle to elevated smoke levels.
  • Producers report increased rates of pneumonia, mortality, and lower calf birth weights tied to smoke events.

• Research Findings:

  • Field studies during wildfire events in Oregon observed:
    • Elevated stress markers (cortisol) and acute-phase proteins (inflammatory response) in calves during smoke exposure.
    • Stress levels from wildfire smoke were comparable to those experienced during weaning, a known high-stress period for cattle.
      • "We noticed that stress level during smoke exposure was similar to the same stress level of the calves at weaning." – Dr. Juliana Ranches [19:24]
  • Controlled studies (lab-generated smoke, 7 days exposure):
    • Replicated the stress and inflammatory responses seen in the field studies.
    • Measured physiological markers returned to baseline about a week after smoke exposure ended.

• Producer Guidance:

  • It is not always easy to distinguish between smoke-related respiratory symptoms and infectious bovine respiratory disease (BRD).
    • "What we're seeing, it's very similar—coughing, runny nose, teary eyes—but they don't have a fever." – Dr. Juliana Ranches [21:36]
  • More research and producer education are needed to avoid unnecessary treatments and to monitor for lingering health effects.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On virtual fencing flexibility:

  • "Traditional fence doesn't give you the flexibility that virtual fence would give... with the virtual fence we always say that it gives you management to the animal level, not so much the herd level." – Dr. Juliana Ranches [07:51]

• Inventory humor:

  • “A Life in Spreadsheets.” – Dustin Pendell (suggested autobiography title) [02:57]

• On smoke stress:

  • “It was multiple days of gray skies and you don't know if it's day or morning and it's horrible.…That got me thinking about smoke exposure from wildfires and how that would impact livestock health.” – Dr. Juliana Ranches [16:59]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Podcast Introduction & Guest Background: 00:05–03:14
• Virtual Fencing Deep Dive: 03:14–11:59
• Cattle Inventory Quiz and Market Implications: 11:59–16:16
• Smoke Exposure Research and Results: 16:16–22:43

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Themes & Takeaways

• Virtual fencing is an evolving technology providing flexible, individualized management for cattle (especially useful in the West post-fire or in large rangelands), but practical and legal challenges remain.
• Cattle inventory in the US continues to decline, with little sign of herd rebuilding on the horizon, affecting both short-term market conditions and long-term production capacity.
• Wildfire smoke impacts cattle health by producing acute immune and stress responses; short-term effects are becoming clearer, but long-term health outcomes need more research and better field differentiation between smoke exposure and infectious diseases.

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For ongoing questions or feedback, listeners are encouraged to contact the show at [e-mail].

Transcript

[A]

Hi, welcome to VCI Cattle Chat. I'm Brad White. Happy to have you with us today and happy to have our crew here. Good morning, Bob.

[B]

Good morning, Philip.

[C]

Good morning, guys.

[A]

Dustin.

[D]

Good morning, Brian.

[E]

Hello, everybody.

[A]

And our guest today is Juliana Ranches, who's an assistant professor and beef extension specialist at Oregon State. Good morning, Juliana.

[F]

Good morning. Hi, everybody. Happy to be here.

[A]

We're happy to have you with us because we get a chance to talk about some topics that we haven't spent a lot of time on. One is virtual fencing. I know you've done some research in that area. We'll also discuss smoke and the impact on cattle health, some of your research there as well. And Dustin's got some economic questions for us, so we're happy to have you with us. Tell us a little bit about you, Juliana.

[F]

Hi, I'm Juliana Ranches. I'm assistant professor and beef extension specialist with Oregon State University. I'm originally from Brazil, and I did my master's and PhD at University of Florida. Moved to Oregon 2022, where I'm working with virtual fencing. So smoke exposure and how that affects cattle health with many other topics related to beef cattle nutrition.

[A]

And we're glad to have you on, and I know you do a lot of good work there. And we're going to talk about the topics I mentioned, but before we get into those, I wanted to ask you guys a question. And, Bob, I know you're thinking about all kinds of things, one of which is probably writing your autobiography. So I wonder if you've already thought of the title. And I'm going to start with you, but I want to know the title of what your autobiographies would see.

[B]

I'm picturing a comic book.

[A]

Maybe superhero comic book.

[B]

No, more like kind of the Far side. Actually, you've helped me figure it out. So the Far side with Bob. The Far side with Bob, because his name was Larson. Anyway, the guy that wrote the Far side, Gary Larson. I would love my story told by Gary Larson in cartoon form. Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

Excellent. And a lot of the pages may not make sense.

[B]

Oh, heavens, Philip.

[C]

So you guys know my history. We moved around quite a bit from place to place and stuff. So one of the things that we did with our boys, there's the Dr. Seuss book. Oh, the places you will go or whatever. And so everywhere we went, we had like, their teacher or somebody sign that book for them wherever we moved to, stuff like that. So I'm thinking my autobiography be something like that. Oh, the places you've been or something like that.

[A]

You've been. I like that, Brian.

[E]

I feel like Philip's given this some thought and I clearly have not. I don't know, like. No, that might be a good title. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, I like that, Dustin.

[D]

Yeah, I've given this zero thought as well. And I can't use the. I don't know. I guess I don't know too.

[A]

The sequel.

[D]

And nobody would read it either, so.

[A]

We would read it, Dustin. There's lots of people that would be interested.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

A Life in spreadsheets.

[A]

Juliana, do you have one?

[F]

Oh, my gosh. I was just going to go to the same route. I worry so much about the things I don't know, so I think it would be something like the things she doesn't know.

[B]

Yeah, that's pretty good.

[A]

Yeah, those are all good. But we'll veer into the things that you do know because we're going to talk a little bit about virtual fencing. And this is something that has come up and we've had some questions on this in the past, and I've had some conversations with producers. There are not a lot of people using this type of technology. So maybe describe to us briefly what is virtual fencing and what are some of the options?

[F]

Yeah, so we start to work with virtual fencing back in 2020. So you're completely right. There's not a lot of people using it. But we are seeing an increase on people adopting this technology, especially here in the west, because it seemed to be something. We have problems with regulations when put fences and stuff like that after fires specifically. So logistically is something that has been getting a lot of attention from producers. But basically the way it works, cows have to wear a collar. Those collars are connected to a software and to a satellite. And within the software and satellite you can create boundaries. And when those animals crosses, if they try to cross that boundary, they initially going to receive a sound, a beep or something like that. And if they continue to cross that boundary, they eventually going to receive a shock. I think there's three brands in the US right now, and they kind of work all the same. So that's a very broad concept on how the virtual fence works, but basically like we were discussing earlier, it's like a dog shock collar type of thing, but it's based on a satellite coordinate rather than something in the ground as older technology was used.

[D]

So what you just described is exactly what my neighbors have for their dog. And my initial thought or question for you is I know they have to Buy the collar. And so my first question is, how much does this collar cost? And then they also pay a monthly fee. And is there some kind of monthly fee on top of that as well?

[F]

Yeah, so I think that's specifically to each company. We've been working with Vence since everything started. So Vence was recently acquired by Merck and I think at the time, maybe about a year ago, the last price I have in my mind is I think it would be $40 per caller, $10 for a battery. And, and that was your annual fee. So you pay that once a year per animal. And then you had to buy a tower, sometimes multiple towers. The towers is what connects the collar, the satellites and software, and that's how you get your signals and boundaries. That tower would be around 10 to $15,000. Last year. Things have changed a little bit. But last year there's quite a bit of NCRS money to help with those costs here in the west for the 12 ounce towers. And the producers would just pay for the collars, basically.

[B]

Well, my understanding, and I'm going to look both at Juliana and Philip, you know, a lot of the management intensive grazing, you and I are both familiar with that. But that really was in more dense, where grazing is denser, you know, fewer acres per cow, and cool season grasses, sometimes monocultures, those types of things that really kind of proved that concept of improved productivity. You know, more pounds of beef per acre, those types of things. But that's been hard to replicate in Western Range Grant, first of all, because many more acres per cow, the fencing cost gets crazy. If you want to really do a lot of cross fencing, the other thing, even just the grass is different. So maybe I should back up and just. Is this concept basically trying to kind of make management intensive grazing work in rangelands, or is it a different strategy?

[C]

Well, I think Juliana can jump in here. She's done more than I have. But I guess I'm not sure the technology was developed specifically thinking about management intensive grazing. Maybe it was, but I think the technology was developed. And then that's just one of the applications of the technology is in larger ranches where cross fencing miles and miles is not very logistically feasible. This becomes a way of using that management or grazing strategy in that situation.

[A]

Well, and you can keep them. You could do it to keep them in the places you want them, as you described, Bob, or keep them out of places that you don't necessarily want them. So if there's riparian areas or places that you don't want the cattle and simply, I think you can monitor where they are. Any other things we're missing, Juliana?

[F]

No, I think you. I think you covered very well. What we. We often say here is that traditional fence doesn't give you the flexibility that virtual fence would give. Once you establish a pasture, that's what you have. Maybe establish that pasture not knowing your whole area. And that's not the best area you would be grazing, especially for us here that have mixed species in the pasture. So if the virtual fence we try, we always say that it gives you management to the animal level, not so much the herd level, because you can intensively graze and manage those animals other than some things you cannot do with the. The pasture. Right. Like traditional fencing.

[C]

So one of the questions I had, Juliana, and I think this has come up before in different conversations. Does every animal have to have a collar or. Since these are herd animals, can I put a collar on 70, 80% of the herd and the other 20 or 30% will follow along? Pretty much.

[F]

That's an excellent question. And unfortunately, we don't have the answer for that yet. Everybody wants to know if, can I just call her half percent off my herd? And that would be enough? We don't know that yet. We do have a study that probably sheds a little bit of light into this question, that we had cows collared and we didn't have the calves collared in this study. There were pairs, and only the mamas were collared in this study. Specifically, we were trying to create a fire break. So we have a larger area with. In a pasture, and we were making them to graze over. Graze basically. Not overgrazed, but graze more than what we would intend. And we saw with that as soon as forage was limiting, calves start to graze out of that location. And then the cows also did it even though they had the collar. So I would assume that if you have a herd where you have some animals that don't have the collar and you get to a situation where force is limiting, I'm assuming that the same will happen as soon as some cows see others going, raising in other areas, they will follow. If the forage is limiting.

[A]

I was going to go the other direction. I've got one cow that I think might need two or three collars just to keep her where she's supposed to be.

[E]

I don't think I've ever had a calf that stayed in the fences anyway.

[A]

So even regular fences.

[E]

I had a question, Julian, about the legality of it. Right. And so my understanding for the Virtual fencing is you need to train the cows to it. Right. You can't just put collars on and kick them out. Right. And so I'd read an article in an industry magazine that was kind of covering this, and their example was, you know, what if a cow gets out on a highway? But, you know, other examples would be like, what about bulls? Like, are bulls going to respond the same way to a beep and a shock if there are cows in heat across the virtual fence? Right. So what about the legal aspects of virtual fencing?

[F]

Yeah, that's a great question. And I would say that SPA listed specific. So here we have a lot of open range where we don't have peripheral, like, external fences, so we can actually get a cow in a highway easily. So, honestly, I think there would be state by state situation. But I had it in my mind that whenever you establish a virtual fencing, there's at least four to seven days of training. So animals learn how to respect that. And another strategy to make sure your virtual offenses were not going to fail you. So in the example, like, of getting too close to a highway, what you can do is to establish multiple boundaries. So you put one virtual fence boundary here, followed by another, followed by another. So if the animal breaks one, there's at least a few more till they get to that location. So it's a way. I feel like we need to be creative when it comes to virtual fence more than we are normally with traditional fencing. And then on the bull side, I'm not very familiar with people trying to put it on bulls. I think there was a few attempts, and they were not successful, but maybe people are trying now. Again, not 100% sure.

[A]

Yeah, good questions there. So it's an interesting technology. It'll be good to see where it evolves to and what we can use that for in the field. I want to shift gears. And, Dustin, I know you've had a new report come out and you've got some questions for us.

[D]

Yep. So January 1st, or in January, I guess, into January, the USDA always comes out with their cattle inventory report. And so the questions I guess I'm going to ask today are all related to production inventory numbers. And then from there, I'd like to just talk about what we think that means going forward. So US Cattle inventory numbers came out, and. And I'm sure you probably all read that the numbers are down.

[F]

Down.

[D]

Right. Do we know what the number is, how much, what percent? Or do we know a number?

[C]

I'll say 5%, 1%.

[B]

I like Juliana's answer.

[A]

I'll go 2, 3.

[E]

I guess 4 is left.

[D]

Well, yeah, she was right. 1%. So since you're correct, I'll let you answer this one first. What? That was the lowest value since what year?

[F]

1950, I think.

[A]

Wow.

[D]

61.

[A]

Closer than we would have got. You didn't even let us guess. You would be closer.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

So we're at about 86. A little over 86 and a half million head. Lowest since then. So that's all cow. That would be both dairy and beef. Now just specifically, let's talk beef inventory.

[C]

Any you took cows or cows and calves in feedlot or what are we talking?

[D]

It's just beef cattle inventory.

[A]

I don't. I think total.

[B]

Yeah, we're supposed to guess the total.

[D]

Or how can you do a percent?

[B]

I was gonna say 60,000 or 60 million.

[C]

Yeah, I was going somewhere in that ballpark too. So.

[A]

Yeah, I'll say 55. Yeah, I'd be in. I don't know, I'd be in the same ballpark as you guys, I guess.

[F]

I think it's 80 something. 87.

[D]

Well, the US beef cattle inventory as of January 1, 2025 was 20.2 7.9 million.

[C]

That's got to be just be beef cows then.

[A]

That's just cows.

[D]

Yep, that would be cows. 1% again. Another 1%. Okay, now, cattle on feed on January 1st.

[A]

Percent increase versus last year. Decrease versus last month.

[D]

We can do percent change.

[A]

Percent change since last year.

[B]

I've got a pattern here. 1%.

[D]

You're correct. It's 1%.

[B]

So we're, we're shrinking just a little bit across the board.

[D]

Now we'll talk about replacement heifer inventory.

[B]

Oh, that's the important one on whether we're going to grow or not. I don't think it started to grow yet. I'm going to say down 1% again.

[D]

Exactly.

[B]

That means we are not growing yet.

[D]

Nope. And then what about milk cows, dairy herds?

[C]

I'm going to say that's down. Oh, I don't know. I said I'll just guess.

[A]

3%. I think they're up.

[E]

I'll say.

[F]

I think they're up.

[E]

I think. Holding steady.

[D]

Yeah, it depends on what you read. It's either holding steady or just a few cows up. So. Okay, now let's talk. Just what does that mean for specifically replacement heifers? Small inventory beef replacement heifers. What's that mean in the future?

[B]

We keep waiting for when people are going to start retaining heifers, which then the actual cow number Growth lags that a while, a couple of years. But my understanding is we, we have not seen anything that indicates that cow numbers are going to go up soon.

[C]

We haven't been retaining heifers or grow. I mean, this has been pretty consistent pattern for what, three, four years now.

[A]

Yeah, but the beef, but the beef production has not dropped off at the, at the same rate because of bigger cattle feeding them a little bit longer. So that's, I mean, that's a driver that hasn't come into play as far as what we got to save heifers. But calf prices, feeder calf prices have.

[B]

Been historically good, which makes those heifers really valuable to sell.

[A]

Yeah, that's the, that's hard to keep.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

But eventually, and I think last month February's cattle on feed report worked the numbers down. Numbers, placements going in, placements at the feed yard. So I just wonder if we'll start to eventually start to see the. Maybe in 2025.

[A]

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see as that plays through. And I think good point because all of those inventory numbers, it's interesting because it's been a shrinking national herd if we measure at the cow level over time. So thanks for sharing those numbers with us, Dustin. I want to switch back to some of Juliana's research. And we live in an area where there are prescribed, so some of the warm season pasture will be burned off often in the spring, sometimes in the fall. There are other areas of the country that have unprescribed burns that will go for broader swaths of land. And one of your areas of research is you've looked at what's the impact of smoke and cattle health. Tell us a little bit about what you've done, Juliana.

[F]

Yeah, so when I moved To Oregon in 2020, it was the first time that I face wildfires. I mean, in Florida, people sometimes have prescribed fires, but wildfires are nothing compared to prescribed fires. So it was multiple days of gray skies and you don't know if it's day or morning and it's horrible. And half a torches are always telling you to stay inside, create a clean air room. And that got me thinking about smoke exposure from wildfires and how that would impact livestock health. So, so we did a quick survey with producers across Oregon, California, Nevada, just to ask them if they thought that smoke had an impact on animal health. And everybody, not everybody, but majority of producers would say yes. They have noticed more pneumonia, more mortality, lower birth weight for calves and things like that. So that kind of got us interested and start Doing some smoke exposure studies and see how that affects cattle health and performance.

[A]

Yeah, and what kind of studies did you do, Julian?

[F]

So, you know, studying smoke exposure is not easy, so you never know when a fire is going to strike. So our first study back in 2022, we had multiple herds across the state, and we did some baseline collections, basically collecting blood from those calves and looking at air quality over time. So we just wait. We collect some baseline data and wait till a fire happen, and then to smoke would reach those animals. So in that very first study, we were lucky enough to have a fire close about 10 miles from the farm. We were working with the calves, and we saw that as soon as they were exposed to that smoke, when air quality was not within the adequate range, we saw increases in cortisol concentration and acute phase proteins, also on the cytokines, which persisted for a few weeks after that smoke exposure and then starts to decline. So we. We think that smoke exposure does lead to some sort of immune response on those calves. And on the stress side, we noticed that stress level during smoke exposure was similar to the same stress level to the calves at weaning. And we know weaning is very stressful for calves.

[B]

Yeah, I was just thinking, to clarify those. The things like cortisol kind of associated with stress and some of those other things. Acute phase proteins, more like inflammation. So you were kind of thinking of inflammation and stress, which kind of makes sense.

[F]

Yeah. And then now, too. So that was when calves were naturally exposed to smoke. So it was hard to conduct this study because, like I said, we were never sure when a fire would happen. So we would have to be on call all the time to make sure we'd get those samples. So now what we're doing is we have a model where we expose. We create our own smoke and expose those animals to smoke within an enclosed barn for seven consecutive days, trying to mimic what we see during the wildfire season. And we are seeing very similar responses physiologically as we've seen for animals that were naturally exposed. Again, increases in cortisol, acute phase proteins, cytokines. There is an inflammatory response being built by those animals that had been exposed to smoke.

[E]

Juliana, I think you said this, but I just want to clarify. How far out did you go, or how far out did you see that response? I think you said a couple weeks, and then it returns to normal. Or how far out have you measured?

[F]

Yeah. So for our control studies, right now, we are seeing changes on those markers up to a week after animals had been exposed, and then it Seems that those responses return to baseline.

[A]

Yeah. So relatively short lived change, but potentially an important one. It'll be interesting to follow up when you've got your challenge studies and follow those cattle through. And you and I visited a little bit before. It's very hard in the observational study to get enough of the exposed and not exposed because it's random chance at where those occur. But the interesting part would be following those calves all the way through after they go through weaning. Do they have any problems further in life and we simply don't know at this point. I don't think you've been able to follow any of those calves that far, is that correct?

[F]

Yeah, we haven't been able to follow. I mean our calves, we always work with cats post weaning on our controlled smoke exposure study. But I think one area that I'm really interested is when those animals go to a feedlot. I think if they're exposed to smoke and there's an insult, I think those animals might have a harder time to recover if they have any case of BRD or something like that because they have been insulted before due to smoke. And we are seeing with producers, this is an area that we're probably going to go this year is a way to try to identify what is really BRD and what is just smoke exposure. Because visually what we're seeing, it's very similar. There's coughing, there's runny nose, teary eyes, but they don't have a fever. So we're trying to figure out a way to teach producers how to use. Yeah, this is just smoke exposure. They're going to recover, they're going to be fine in a few days. This is something you need to treat. It's more like a viral thing. It might be brd.

[A]

Yeah, that's an important distinction and I think that's a good place to start looking at if you can distinguish the smoke exposure from infectious causes of respiratory disease or bovine respiratory disease. So excellent work, Juliana. I appreciate you sharing with us and joining to talk about both the smoke exposure and the virtual fencing. As always, if you have a question, comment or topic you'd like us to discuss on an upcoming episode, send us an email at bcisu Edu.