For generations, Flint Hills ranching has depended on grass, cattle, weather, water and fence.
Daniel Mushrush of Chase County is not suggesting those fundamentals have disappeared. He said newer ranching technology still depends on the same principles of animal behavior and animal husbandry that have always mattered.
But one technology now being used by Mushrush Ranches is changing how cattle can be managed on the prairie. Virtual fencing, which uses GPS-enabled collars on cattle, allows ranchers to create boundaries without building permanent or semi-permanent fence lines.
Mushrush said his family has been working with virtual fencing for about five years. They began with one company but later moved to a New Zealand-based company the ranch has been using for about two and a half years.
The system allows ranchers to draw boundaries on a phone or computer app. The cattle wear collars that help guide them within those boundaries. Mushrush said each cow must wear a collar, although calves do not.
Mushrush Ranches currently has about 450 collars in use and expects that number to be closer to 500 this fall.
Technology does not replace livestock knowledge, he said. Instead, it works best when ranchers use it with what they already know about cattle.
“What does an animal want?” Mushrush said. “Access to clean water, fresh grass. She wants to be with her friends and with her calf. That doesn’t change.”
Mushrush said the collars are not simply a matter of cattle walking to a line and receiving a shock. The system first gives warning signals. It also uses vibrations that cattle learn to associate with direction and new grass.
“The cows learned it in about three days,” Mushrush said, adding that it took people longer to understand all of the system’s functions.
He said the system uses positive reinforcement as well as correction. If a cow is being directed toward a new grazing area, the collar may vibrate directionally. Over time, the cow learns that following the vibration leads to fresh grass.
“That positive reinforcement, I think, is really underestimated,” Mushrush said. “That’s why it works so well.”
The system also recognizes different patterns of behavior in different animals. A cow that repeatedly tests the boundary may be treated differently than one that rarely leaves the designated area. If a cow that normally respects the boundary crosses it because her calf is on the other side or because she has been pushed out, the system may guide her back differently.
“It doesn’t change animal behavior, animal husbandry,” he said. “It feels like we’re reinventing the wheel, but every animal, everything still applies.”
The technology also changes the way cattle can be moved. Mushrush described a visitor from Missouri who came to Chase County wanting to see the system work. The ranchers drew a new grazing area on the phone and activated it. The cows received their signals and slowly grazed toward the new area.
Mushrush said the visitor was disappointed because the move was so uneventful.
But Mushrush said that is exactly why the system works. From the cattle’s point of view, the move is natural. They are not being rushed or chased. They simply graze from one area into another.
“They kind of just graze with their heads down and graze toward it,” he said.
The technology also has practical value during calving. Mushrush said that in the past, checking cows during calving season could require a 25-mile round trip on a four-wheeler and take three to four hours. Ranchers had to physically search every part of the pasture to make sure no cow was calving in a difficult location.
With virtual fencing, he can keep cows that have not yet calved in a smaller area of the pasture that is easier to reach.
“If nothing has calved that day, I just don’t go there,” Mushrush said. “And if there has, I do.”
He said work that once took three to four hours and 20 to 25 miles on a four-wheeler can now take about one hour and roughly two miles.
The collars also provide herd monitoring. Mushrush said the system includes GPS information and notifications. It can help identify animals that may not be moving like the rest of the herd, as well as provide information such as heat cycles and breeding information.
“It’s just kind of herd monitoring as well as control,” he said.
Mushrush said the technology is expensive, but the question is how it is used. If someone only uses it as a “babysitter” to keep cattle in one place, he said, it may not pay for itself. But if a rancher uses it to change grazing management, improve grass recovery and increase productivity, it can cash flow.
“It is pricey,” Mushrush said. “But if you are willing to treat it like an employee and really work at it and use it and change the way you run your business, it will cash flow.”
He said the value is not only in the land being grazed at a particular moment. It is also in the rest of the pasture that is being rested and allowed to recover.
“You’re growing more grass,” he said. “With more grass, ranchers may be able to support more animals. Cattle also benefit because they are regularly moved to better grass.”
One result surprised Mushrush. He said calf weaning weights increased by about 30 pounds after the ranch began using collars. Because calves do not wear collars, they can move just ahead of their mothers and get the best bites of grass before the cows arrive.
There are also conservation implications with the technology. Mushrush said his family began using virtual fencing in connection with the nearby Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and the Nature Conservancy. He described the relationship as neighbors working together with shared goals.
He said ranchers and conservation organizations may list their priorities in a different order, but many of the goals are the same. A rancher must earn a living from the land, so grazing livestock are central. A healthy prairie, diverse grasses and a functioning ecosystem are also necessary because cattle depend on grass.
For the park and conservation side, Mushrush said native wildlife, plants and the intact prairie may be higher on the list, with grazing animals also recognized as part of a healthy prairie.
Mushrush said the ranch and the preserve began looking for technology that would allow them to work together toward shared goals. Although ranchers and conservation groups may place their priorities in a different order, he said both are interested in healthy prairie, grazing animals and the long-term care of the Flint Hills.
Kansas State University and Mushrush have been involved in multi-year bird and stream studies in the area. The research has included bird and fish habitat, prairie chicken leks and migrating sparrows. He said prairie chickens and other wildlife do not recognize property boundaries, so the research and management questions extend across neighboring land.
Virtual fencing made it possible to set up bird habitat exclusion zones and nesting areas in real time without building physical fences.
Mushrush said that matters because fence lines can affect prairie ecology in ways many people do not consider. Fences can become perching sites for predators. They can also become corridors for invasive plants and trees, which may create more perching sites for hawks and other predators that affect some bird populations.
Mushrush said virtual fencing also avoids the cost of building some physical fence lines. He estimated that traditional fencing can cost ranchers about $20,000 per mile, creating a major expense for something that may also affect prairie ecology.
He said virtual fencing avoids putting a visible line across the prairie.
He emphasized that the work was not about separating birds and livestock. It was about studying how they function together.
“This wasn’t a study that was the segregation of birds and livestock,” he said. “This was a study of the integration of the two together. How do they work in tandem?”
Mushrush said that is an important Flint Hills story. Local residents may have long believed that grazing and prairie health can work together, but research can provide data behind what people have known anecdotally.
The use of cattle on preserve land has also expanded. Mushrush said cattle have been used west of the historic ranch headquarters area for several years. This year, cattle were placed east of Kansas Highway 177 between Fox Creek and the highway as part of native pasture restoration.
Because virtual fencing allows ranchers to confine animals to certain areas, control grazing pressure and move cattle as needed, Mushrush said cattle can be used as part of the restoration process.
He said several longtime residents tried to remember when cattle last grazed that portion of the property. His understanding is that it may have been about 50 years.
“They’re using some cows as kind of a native pasture restoration process, which is really pretty cool,” he said.
Mushrush said virtual fencing is not equally valuable in every setting. In the Flint Hills, many operations rely heavily on seasonal grazing rather than year-round grazing. The collars require a year-round contract, and dry Flint Hills grass in January does not offer the same productivity opportunity as summer grass or winter cover crops elsewhere.
He called the technology a “productivity squeezer.” Where there is significant productivity potential, it can create major gains. Where the grass is poor or conditions are limited, the return may be smaller.
Mushrush said he initially thought virtual fencing would help bring less-productive acres up to match better acres. Instead, he found that it made the already productive acres much more productive.
Mushrush also sees the technology as part of a larger issue facing ranching in the Flint Hills. He said ranchers need to improve management because they now face competition from recreational land buyers, including out-of-state owners with significant financial resources. He said some recreational land ownership can lead to more brush and less active land management, which can damage the prairie.
“We have to do a better job managing this, so we can outbid them,” Mushrush said.
He also believes innovation matters for the future of ranching and rural communities. Mushrush said much of the cattle industry would still be familiar to his great-grandfather, Frank Frey. A four-wheeler may have replaced a horse in some work, but much of the system has remained centered on barbed wire and traditional practices.
He said that lack of innovation may be connected to the difficulty of attracting young people back into agriculture.
“You have no innovation because nobody comes back, or does nobody come back because there is no innovation?” Mushrush said. “This is the first technology I’ve seen that I think can break that wheel.”
For Mushrush, virtual fencing does not make ranching less connected to the land. It allows ranchers to manage the land more closely, respond more quickly and work with the prairie in ways that may benefit both livestock and wildlife.
The old fundamentals remain. Cattle still need grass, water, herd behavior and careful handling. The Flint Hills still need grazing to remain healthy.
The difference is that, in some Chase County pastures, the fence line may now exist only on a screen and in the quiet signal of a collar.
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