SBIR Phase I: Developing Technology for Stimulating the Herd Instinct of Livestock to Improve Environmental Impact

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to help restore grassland ecosystems and reduce net greenhouse gas emissions from livestock by developing technology to stimulate the herd instinct of livestock. Grassland ecosystems have been shown to benefit from large herds of animals that promote water absorption and replenish important nutrients.

However, most livestock in the western United States are currently scattered in large pastures and allowed to roam individually. This project aims to develop and test low-cost ear tags which use audio and electrical stimulation to reinforce the natural herd instinct of individual animals when they stray from the group. High stock density/low duration grazing has demonstrated the potential of reducing livestock greenhouse emissions and turning rangelands into a net carbon sink.

Higher vegetation diversity, more water absorption, reduced erosion, and more wildlife habitat are just some of the expected ecological benefits of this technology. This technology could also facilitate more efficient and cost-effective ranch management. The risk of livestock theft will be reduced, and the need for fences would decrease since the migratory instincts of livestock work best on larger land areas.

This SBIR Phase I project will develop and test a novel approach of stimulating the herd instinct of livestock rather than geographically confining them. Key to the implementation of this approach is the additional innovation of a unique and low-cost strategy to use ear tags with low-power radiofrequency (RF) transceivers to calculate herd proximity from an accumulation of individual distance estimates.

This technology will use a highly integrated system using an ear tag attached to each animal in the herd. Each tag will use a low power RF transceiver to periodically send brief signals to the other tags in the herd. The tags will use signal strength measurements to calculate their own approximate distance to every other tag.

Each tag will then use an algorithm to determine whether it is within an appropriate proximity to the rest of the herd. If an animal begins to stray from the herd, the tag will give an audio alert potentially followed by electrical stimulation to encourage the animal to rejoin its peers. The capability of holding a herd at a density from 10,000 to 1,000,000 pounds per acre will be a key metric of success.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.