AoR 172: Vence on the J Lazy S Ranch in Idaho, the Sequel with Jay Smith

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[Tip Hudson:] Welcome to "The Art of Range," a podcast focused on rangelands and the people who manage them. I'm your host Tip Hudson, range and livestock specialist with Washington State University extension. The goal of this podcast is education and conservation through conversation. Find us online at artofrange.com. Welcome back to "The Art of Range." My guests today are Jay Smith, a rancher in east central Idaho, and Steve Stuebner, the editor of the Life on the Range story and video series. They are both regular interviewees on the podcast and recently published along with some others a story and a short film on their virtual fence project, the one that we covered a little while ago in a previous episode. But this is also a sequel to that prior episode. We recorded that right after the first year of implementation and I wanted to come back and see what the results were. So, Jay, welcome back. I'm glad to have you.

[Jay Smith:] Well, Tip, thanks for having us. It's always good to visit with you and we always enjoy getting some of this cutting edge information out for people who might be thinking about implementing it to use.

[Tip Hudson:] And, Steve, in case I don't think of it again later, I want to thank you again for spearheading this project and putting these things together. These are -- really the more I look at it the more I like this pairing of the story and the video that are both easy to understand and easy to watch and it's not a two hour commitment. These are really valuable projects.

[Steve Stuebner:] Yeah. Yeah. I agree and I think we try to stay on the cutting edge with Life on the Range and knowing, you know -- having a really good network with our producers in the state of Idaho and the ranching community helps us stay on that edge and this is really an interesting topic for sure. And to all ranchers I think.

[Tip Hudson:] If we needed more evidence that they were useful I can happily report that my mother-in-law says that these are her favorite podcast episodes. She especially liked the one with Maria [inaudible] about the grazing on wetlands. So again thank you.

[Steve Stuebner:] Cool. Nice.

[Tip Hudson:] Jay, I know this has been talked about before and I'm certain that you're sick and tired of talking about it, but I think it'd be worth just revisiting quickly how you go in to trying out virtual fence because I don't know that I would have called your situation one of the low hanging fruit case studies.

[Jay Smith:] Well, often life requires a hot shot to the backside to make one jump in a certain direction. And virtual fence is something we had contemplated for a while. The technology was emerging and we were just waiting for that sweet spot of when to jump in. And so it was on our minds when the moose fire of 2022 engulfed the entirety of our main summer grazing allotment. And that fall when the forest allowed us to go back up and open the road it didn't take a very long survey to realize that the very best cow country either did not burn or burnt lightly. And I just really had an internal struggle imagining staying home selling down cow numbers, whatever it would be to do a two to three year rest like the forest typically mandates. And so that was the hot shot that I needed to get with the university, to get with the forest service and get with the BLM and make a strategic plan to utilize those unburned and lightly burned acres while in conjunction doing a post fire grazing study.

[Tip Hudson:] Yeah. And you mentioned this was a cooperate effort in that at a minimum the forest service had to buy off on the idea, but in order to let you graze the allotment in spite of the fire and put some trust in the ability of, you know, this somewhat untested technology to do what you needed it to do. What else did the forest service do to cooperate on that project?

[Jay Smith:] Well, in the first year that was the bulk of it, that, you know, they put trust in us. They also wanted to learn about the technology and that's where part of the trust came from is they knew they weren't going to get reeled out unless we actually tried it. So really kudos. You know, we're talking starting planning the fall of one year so that we can turn out the spring of the next. And when you're speaking at the speed of government that's lightening fast. And so we had good cooperation and things just happened to fall in to place, you know. We were in the right places at the right times to make it work in that sort of time frame.

[Tip Hudson:] Yeah. In the article you quoted Kyle Nelson who's the range specialist on the Salmon Challis forest and he was using -- it seems significant to me that he was using we language to describe the effort. And by effort I mean, you know, to make this work on a landscape that big it really has to be an all hands on deck to make the grazing allotment fulfill its multiple purpose use of being truly functional wild open spaces and a place to raise cattle. But the fact that he said "We were able to make it work and we're going to use with implementation this year" seemed like it was significant to me.

[Jay Smith:] When you use the term federal partner, you hear that in range circles a lot, Kyle Nelson and Tina Roofing would be the poster children of that in my world. They just really embrace livestock on the range and they do everything they can to make it work within their rules and they are a couple of fantastic individuals.

[Steve Stuebner:] And the BLM was on board as well, Jay. Right? Or at least very interested.

[Jay Smith:] The BLM was the easy part, Steve. Yeah. They were actually on board before we stepped in the door. They were ready to run with it and give it a try.

[Steve Stuebner:] It seems like Linda Price, the regional manager there, she was just like, "Wow. I can just see so many opportunities with this technology."

[Jay Smith:] Absolutely. And of course Vince was right on her heels and he had been talking with Melinda and Joel and trying to get a project going to test it anyhow. So yeah. The timing was really good in that regard.

[Tip Hudson:] Again you probably have talked about this some, but for listeners who are not familiar with this part of Idaho describe this allotment and kind of some of the challenges. I mean one of the known challenges that is not any kind of a secret is that when you're relying on bay stations that project a radio signal that can be blocked by topography in much of the west we have really rough topography and this is certainly one of those places. Yeah. Describe the terrain and what it looked like to try to make virtual fence work in a pretty challenging landscape.

[Jay Smith:] I don't know how to describe without pictures the terrain other than it's mountainous, salmon river breaks country. So it's large. It's steep. Has really deep ravines and crevices, places where, you know, you do not get any cell signal or any type of radio waves can't travel. It's really tough country. But that was really one of the reasons we were so excited to try it here is that we figured if we could make it work here it would work just about anywhere.

[Tip Hudson:] While I'm thinking about it, what kind of -- how would you describe the pattern of barbed wire fence on the place? You have properties fenced, allotments fenced. How much interior fence? How old is the fence?

[Jay Smith:] So there's quite a lot of private property boundary fence along the bottom of the allotment, and then there was a little bit of boundary division fence in the middle country which burned. So it basically doesn't exist anymore. And that's about it. It's a really big not heavily fenced allotment.

[Tip Hudson:] So describe briefly how these -- I'm always guilty of assuming that everybody who's listening has listened to everything that's come before or that -- has already heard about this. But that's usually not the case. So again I apologize, but take a minute to describe how the virtual fence works.

[Jay Smith:] So the virtual fence we manually install a collar on each animal each spring and that's a control box that hangs around their neck with a metal chain on each side connected in the middle with two plastic chain links. And the reason for that is it is an electric shock collar and so one side of the box is the negative lead. One side of the box is the positive lead. And the plastic links in the middle keep them from making contact all the way through. So we physically install those collars in the spring and then we turn them out and we train them for four days at home before we go to the range. And the collars have a sound zone and a shock zone and we train both of those for a couple of days and get them used to the audible. Most cows get pretty good where they respect the audible and they never get shocked or rarely get shocked. But then the shock is built in in case they have a listening disorder.

[Tip Hudson:] So you use a I guess I would call it a net wear interface, a website that's run by Vence, the herd manager software system. And you identify areas that you want the animals to stay inside of or use fences like drift fences. You set up the fencing system in the software and then that communicates through cellular towers with a set of bay stations that then communicate with the collars using a radio signal. Am I summarizing that correctly?

[Jay Smith:] You are summarizing that correctly. So after our four day training period at home then we will identify our first range pasture. We'll go on to the software. We'll draw that first pasture, take the cattle to it, and then turn it on, you know. Once they're in it we turn it on. And then we just manage it season long as we progress up the mountain. We'll, you know, turn a boundary off, draw a new one, move them to the new one, turn it on behind them.

[Tip Hudson:] Got it. And you ended up having to use I think five radio stations or radio towers to communicate across how many total acres?

[Jay Smith:] You know they work really well across canyons. So you are correct in the five stations, but that serves both sides of the river. And so it helps allotments other than the one we're talking about get service also. So I just want to point that out that, you know, they are pretty efficient that way. So I'm going to say those five stations probably serve 80 or 90,000 acres.

[Tip Hudson:] Yeah. Yeah.

[Steve Stuebner:] Which is, you know, really incredible given Jay's description of the country which was spot on. And they've got them way up on top of the mountain, you know, so they reach BLM lands and forest service. And quite remarkable.

[Tip Hudson:] Yeah. And up on the mountain is it -- it's mixed conifer right? Mixed conifer forest?

[Jay Smith:] Yeah. It -- that's a good way to describe it. It's --

[Tip Hudson:] Pretty open.

[Jay Smith:] Mostly of that's not pretty open because it's primarily a lodge pole ecosystem. So some of it's really quite dense.

[Tip Hudson:] And how did it work in the trees?

[Jay Smith:] It works just fine in the trees. Yeah. The really fascinating part of the technology is that the fence you draw on your computer is downloaded in to their collar and so they can be down in a deep dark hole where there's no line of sight, there's no cell service. And the fence still works. You don't get all the real time data uploaded until they come and hit connection with the tower, but they can be completely out of sight and out of connection with the tower and the fence part still controls the animals.

[Tip Hudson:] Yeah. Before we move on I do want to plug the video. It is our objective to run these interviews so that people will follow the link in the show notes and go watch the video which is really well done. And the Idaho rangeland resources commission has invested quite a bit in generating these, but they are really well done and that will allow people to see the kind of country we're talking about if they have not been there. And it's worth watching the video even if you are familiar with the countryside. So you're -- go ahead.

[Steve Stuebner:] Just real quick, Tip. You know, we did make multiple trips up there to visit with Jay and Cheyenne about the virtual fence and see how things were going. Plus we had covered the moose fire in detail and did a separate story on that the year before. And so that was a careless camper leaving a fire unattended. It led in to a huge forest fire as things evolved that. And it just burned all summer. And so anyway I think, you know, people get a full sense of what was going on as Jay's describing it here. Kind of the history. And I think, you know, we just really have to give Jay and Cheyenne and the public agency managers kudos for planning this so quickly. You know, and they had established relationships I think. And so there was a relationship of trust as Jay and Cheyenne are great cattle managers. They really stay on it. They pay attention to the details. And they want the range to be in great shape just like the agencies do. So anyway I just think looking back that was so crucial that they, you know, did those meetings, got them to invest in the bay stations. And then we haven't even talked about Joel [inaudible] and the systems from the University of Idaho. But Joel was really key in making everything work.

[Jay Smith:] Yeah. Joel was key in making the technology work and Melinda Ellison was key in working with the agencies with us. It was a really good partnership. We just we just happened to stack the right building blocks together to make things work quickly and efficiently.

[Tip Hudson:] Yeah. Steve, you hit on something that I think is pretty important that relates to something Jay said earlier. He called these our agency partners, our federal partners. And you're right that that can sometimes be sort of a double speak euphemism inside the livestock industry because it often doesn't -- it feels like a partnership about the way that a boxing partner feels like a partnership. But if you have that kind of trust where the agency range cons and higher ups know that you as a permittee are out to do the right thing by the land that goes an awful long way toward being able to execute the flexibility that oftentimes is already built in. We've heard this from a number of people both with the BLM and forest service. They have more flexibility than oftentimes gets exercised and the way to exercise it is to establish trust inside of these relationships so that you can function like a partner where you're more like, you know, two draft horses pulling the same direction as opposed to boxing partners.

[Jay Smith:] Good analogy.

[Tip Hudson:] Steve, I want to do a quick aside. And we didn't talk about this ahead of time, but you had to have been the one that wrote up some of the history of virtual fence technology. Was that you in the story?

[Steve Stuebner:] Yeah. Well, yeah. We touched on, you know, how it works and requires a cell signal and blah, blah, blah. And Joe [inaudible] we were up on the mountain videoing him on, you know, getting things fine tuned so that, you know, the towers and the collars talking to each other, blah, blah, blah.

[Tip Hudson:] Yes. Okay. I just wanted to point out the name Dean Anderson has come up a couple times in conversation with Karen [inaudible] and others about virtual fence because many people don't realize that this has been talked about for a long time. I think Dr. Dean Anderson from New Mexico State University wrote about this, at least published on it on the concept of it for the first time in the 1980s. So this has been, you know, more than 40 years coming around and now we're finally beginning to realize the technology finally caught up to the concepts and it's beginning to be real.

[Steve Stuebner:] Yep. For sure. Yep.

[Tip Hudson:] Jay, this was the third grazing season I think that you've used Vence and the initial objective was to keep cattle off of the areas on the allotment that had burned. Were you successful in meeting that objective?

[Jay Smith:] Yes, Tip. I feel we were very successful in meeting that objective, successful enough that by the second season we had much fewer boundaries and by the third season we had zero boundaries that had to do with burn intensity. So we ramped past that part of it quickly and were able to just get to and stick with just proper range management, just having the cattle in the right place at the right time allowing range readiness in the high country and utilizing the low and mid country to acceptable levels.

[Tip Hudson:] Yeah. I would guess that even inside of a trusting partnership if you ended up having cows all over the burn area and forest service didn't like it they would have just said, "Sorry. You can't go out in year two and three."

[Jay Smith:] Exactly. Yeah. We had the trust. We were fortunate to have the trust. And then we were able to prove the trust and keep moving forward with a product that's really going to work. Now we are post fire now. We are rehabbed. We are moving forward. And I do not see my wife and I not using virtual fence in the future if that statement makes sense. The reason we jumped in to it for is now behind us, but we fully intend to keep using it.

[Steve Stuebner:] But I think a real key here is, you know, that they don't have any fencing from the bottom of the canyon up to the summer range. And so they used to have to chase cattle that they'd drive them all the way to the top and then some of them decided to go back to the bottom. Especially Cheyenne I think, you know, used to ride every day, you know, dealing with trespass cattle or cattle where they shouldn't be. So these guys have saved. It's been a big time saver. I think Jay could talk about that.

[Jay Smith:] I can, and I do have a short story that kind of summarizes that. We run on the BLM for two weeks in the spring or that's what it says on paper. And then we go to the forest for the rest of the summer. Well, pre virtual fence we rode four to five days a week for five months long to manage that little strip of BLM across the bottom. We had cows that left too soon in the spring and we had cows that came back season long. And we just rode and rode and rode to manage that thin piece of the range. Since virtual fence we turn out for the couple weeks we're supposed to turn out. On June 1 when it's time to go to the forest we open up the app on our phones. We know exactly where the cows are. And so I know exactly where to place riders. I strategically place riders across the permit. We gather 100% of the cows in three to four hours, get them above the next fence, turn it on, and they don't come back. And in the fall when the BLM goes out and monitors they call me up and say, "Hey. This is the third year in a row you've only used 4% of your grass. Maybe we ought to have a meeting and talk about doing something a little different." That's how much change it's made for us. Dramatic amount of change.

[Tip Hudson:] Wow. Yeah.

[Steve Stuebner:] So we underscore that in our story and I think that's just great, you know. Great point on range management in general. You know, they're able to use all of their range better than they've ever been able to because of the virtual fence, and yeah. That's super interesting.

[Jay Smith:] Our utilization has been fantastic. We used to have to breed cattle before we went to range because they had scattered out so far. And that forces you to calf in the wintertime which isn't ideal, but otherwise you don't get them bred up. Well, the last three years we've grouped these cattle up with virtual fence and bred on the range and had very acceptable breed up rates on range which I never dreamed of being possible.

[Tip Hudson:] Yeah. I mentioned earlier that I wouldn't have called this the poster child situation. What I meant was that the landscape is not the easiest place to deploy virtual fence compared to a large -- you know, say a large flatter rangeland landscape. But I do think that this -- that your scenario is a poster child use case where you have a really large landscape that is truly wild and there's a need to control animal distribution and direct grazing use inside of it without putting up barbed wire or electric fence which is, you know, in places like this is a very expensive nuisance. That is a poster child use case and I think this has been -- you know, your description of how that has been a success in a variety of ways, you know ecological, social, and economic, is telling. There are a lot of other potential uses for virtual fence that have been talked about, things that we've hoped for. You know, so you have as you've said you've successfully used it to, you know, not have to vacate the allotment for three years. And but now what do you think you would like to do with it? Now that you've got kind of a handle on what the capabilities of the technology are. You know, you've talked about a few things like being able to hold cows when they would ordinarily like to go back down or, you know, run to the top of the mountain. But in terms of you've also said that you're able to graze places that you never got to before because that just wasn't part of their pattern and you can't -- you know, short of having somebody out there like a sheep herder that's with them all the time you just can't do it. So what are the things that if you were, you know, looking in to your crystal ball -- what are the things that you would like to do with virtual fence just in terms of making cows do something creative on a landscape?

[Jay Smith:] Well, I think you've pretty much already hit on it. But there's places where we have seasonal water sources and that's going to be our next step is identifying those lowly utilized areas and using our virtual fence to use them at the right time when the water's there and then move to a better watered spot for the future. That's our next step. We've taken utilization to a higher step than I ever thought we were going to and now we've identified a few ways to even do it further.

[Steve Stuebner:] So water's really important. Jay, could you underscore that a little bit more? Like you've got to have sources of water in your pastures that you set up with virtual fence. Right? I mean as you go along.

[Jay Smith:] Yes. Right. And on topography this large you're pretty dependent on sources that already exist. And so in the high country we've got lots and lots of water. We've got live streams. It's a non issue when we get on top, but when we're on the BLM and in the mid country a lot of those water sources are seasonal. And so we have strategized a rest rotation system where we'll go. Some of those that only have water early, we'll graze them one year, lay off of them the next year, hit a different one every other year so that we're getting a little higher utilization and still being range friendly to the plant life.

[Tip Hudson:] I do think that that likely is a solution for one of the primary natural resource conflicts in public lands grazing. You know, these situations where you have large uplands with lots and lots of grass. And there's enough forage to hold cows for a long time, but if they're watering or grazing in the riparian area, you know, for three or four months it's too much. And you've got to find some way to limit the amount of time spent in the riparian area even though there's still plenty of upland forage and it's not a situation where you can reasonably put up any kind of hard fence. You know, you -- I think we're beyond the days of doing a ton of cross fence in big landscapes like this, but there's still a need to control where animals go in a, you know -- a more deliberate fashion. And you think that this could work for that?

[Jay Smith:] Managed correctly I definitely -- we've already proven it. But we're going to -- we are going to take it to the next level in coming years.

[Tip Hudson:] Yeah.

[Steve Stuebner:] And the agencies are paying attention to that. Right, Jay? I mean --

[Jay Smith:] Oh absolutely. And the university's monitoring. You know, has our back. And it has data to back up what I'm saying.

[Steve Stuebner:] Great.

[Tip Hudson:] Yeah. You have some photographs in the article and some, you know -- some good footage of these riparian areas that are -- you were successful in protecting by timing, you know, when there's access. Yeah. A couple -- a couple other things I wanted to ask about. Most of the naysayers that are critical of virtual fence, and these are usually people that have not used it, but the criticisms are not unfounded. One of the big one is cost. So I'm curious. You first. What kind of push back have you had from other ranchers? Because there can be -- yeah. I won't say any more than that. What kind of push back have you had from other ranchers? And have those objections included things other than cost?

[Jay Smith:] Tip, there are two types -- maybe a little more than two, but there's two distinct types of range managers. There's active range managers that are passionate about the land and the plants and really want to make things better. And there's the type of range managers that kick them out of the gate and hope they don't see them again until fall. And so it depends on which one of those I'm talking to what kind of feedback I'm getting back. These active managers that really want to participate and make things better, yeah. They're talking through the cost benefit ratios and trying to figure out how or if to implement. And that other type of producer's just looking for every reason to not do anything because that's what they choose to do. And so that probably sounds a little blunt, but that's why trust with agency partners and some of those things isn't always a given because not all rangeland users are created equally.

[Steve Stuebner:] Talk about the importance of the bay station cost, Jay, maybe in terms of getting the agencies to invest in those for the future, long term future.

[Jay Smith:] Yeah. I mean the bay station is the only part for me that doesn't immediately pencil in my business plan because they are 10 to 15,000 a piece and we're using 5 of them so you do the math. That adds up pretty quickly. But we were able to grant cost share those bay stations. Some of that, like Steve said, through the agencies and some of that in other forms. And there are more things coming. As this grows in popularity I know that we have personally had conversations with NRCS and others, you know, working on grant programs that aren't available yet, but they are in the pipeline. And so once those bay stations are funded the caller, annual caller, rental for me is a no brainer in labor and time management savings.

[Steve Stuebner:] Yeah. It would be great if NRC has to make that part of farm bill funding.

[Jay Smith:] Yeah. Well, there's obstacles to the farm bill as well know, and we don't need to get in to that on this podcast, but I have personal conversations with them and I know there are people who would like to make that happen.

[Steve Stuebner:] Yep.

[Tip Hudson:] Yeah. They have historically paid for cross fence, just not boundary fence. And this certainly is achieving the same objective even if sometimes it ends up being boundary fence and in some places they -- you know, these things are being paid for like by conservation districts which may have slightly more flexible funding than federal farm bill dollars. One of the challenges that I have seen in people trying to implement a more creative use of virtual fence in the northwest in particular is that wherever you put cattle they've got to have stock water and so, you know, you don't have infinite options for how to break up the landscape unless this is something like, you know, a tame pasture where you've got developed water and alleyways and, you know, however you want to set it up. But on wide open spaces that's not quite so simple. You've either got to pipe it somewhere or haul water to a trough or something. How have you seen that working in your experience with making this work on the allotment?

[Jay Smith:] So what I tell people every time I do a presentation is that this is extremely good technology. We've been really happy with it. But you will not stop a thirsty cow on a downhill run with a virtual fence. And with that said you just have to know your country. You've got to know how your cattle travel. And you have to place those fences where you don't catch them in that situation.

[Tip Hudson:] Have you developed any new water in order to diversify your grazing areas?

[Jay Smith:] So I think that's on the horizon, but that -- developing new water is a NEPA activity and so that's not something that happens in months. That's something that happens in years. So we're always planning out in the future for future water developments, but in the short run what we've done is just made our virtual fences work with the water we have.

[Tip Hudson:] Got it. I wanted to wait and make just one more comment about what you said earlier about active range managers. There was a pretty large scale survey done by University of California Davis maybe a decade ago. I think it was headed up by the late Kent Tate [assumed spelling]. And there's probably others that can speak to this that maybe be worth doing an interview about it, but they set out to identify what might be the common management denominators in ranches that had healthy riparian zones and specifically good water quality. And, you know, they identified lots and lots of management variables, but one of the most telling results as I recall it kind of echoed an earlier study out of Montana that identified an active manager who's just paying attention to what's going on as being the single most -- most highly correlated factor with healthy riparian zones and good water quality. Having somebody who's thinking in terms of riparian function and analyzing, you know, on a weekly if not daily basis how grazing is affecting all of that and just sort of thinking about what to do with it all the time, what we would call adaptive management. But just paying attention and doing something about it. I hear that being what you're describing as the sort of permittee in particular on public lands that probably is necessary today.

[Jay Smith:] Yeah. It is necessary, and especially if you want to implement this kind of technology. You know where issues are in real time and for an active manager that's a good thing. You can go deal with them quickly. You can make a small issue stay a small issue. And you can manage your range properly. For an inactive manager it's like getting scolded by the principal every day. They get this alert on their phone and like "Oh gosh. I have to go do something." You know, that's the mentality difference that I can see. And those studies that you talked about about active managers and non active managers, I'd sure like to see that tied to ranch economics because we do get paid for fertility. We do get paid for pound of calf. And when we manage properly those things show up on our bottom line. And so not only do I love and care about the range, but I also love and care about my bottom line and it's nice that the right thing is also financially rewarding.

[Tip Hudson:] Yeah. I do think we're moving in that direction. As you mentioned, the system is set up to prevent transgression. You know, we document numbers and dates and utilization levels, but that's sort of a stop gap measure to prevent damage. It's not a system that's set up to incentivize grazing in a way that generates ecosystem health perhaps in a way that is improved upon doing nothing at all. And I hear that, you know -- I appreciate that there are people like you that are doing that now and I actually think there are more of them probably because the other method is really not profitable over the long term. I'm convinced of that.

[Jay Smith:] Yeah. I am too, Tip. Wholeheartedly.

[Steve Stuebner:] Tip, Jay was, you know, touching on one thing that we should just go back on a really basic level. It's that I think Jay and Cheyenne really enjoy being able to look at their phones and their computer and know where their cattle are. Right? I mean that's a whole new thing with the virtual fence technology.

[Tip Hudson:] Yes. In fact we've done some informal and formal surveys associated with Karen [inaudible] you know virtual fence project trying to think through what other ways might we be able to attack this issue of what she calls remote animal location management. And one of the things that comes up is that many people would -- they feel like maybe even three quarters of the value of these systems is being able to know where the cows are. And you've touched on that. But, as Steve said, I would like to hear more about that. To what extent is that a significant value on its own separate from whether or not the system can contain animals?

[Jay Smith:] That's a good question, Tip. From a lover and a studier of the range animal location and heat maps and time spent data has been fascinating. I've learned more about what my cows do and where they do it than I ever dreamed possible. So from a data standpoint, and I'm a data guy, that part has been really phenomenal. Really good information saved and stored on that. But we used to spend months and months of riding looking for cattle in the fall to bring them home because the permit ends 10 October. You get a year like this year where we get some fall rain. It greens back up. Cows don't care about calendars. They're happy. They don't want to come home. With this location technology my resources are very well spent identifying where cattle are at and what's the most efficient path to get them home. So yeah. What used to take months and months now takes weeks.

[Steve Stuebner:] Plus Cheyenne is happy. Right? She doesn't have to chase cows so much. She can train horses and raise daughters and do other things at home. Tell us a little about that, Jay.

[Jay Smith:] Well, the way we say it at home is it's taken away a lot of the putting out fires, the emergency riding, and it's allowed us to do more scheduled, more meaningful, riding. And so we still ride a lot, but when we do it it's you're not leaving your tractor in the middle of a field with hay that you should be baling to go take care of cattle that aren't where they belong. That just tends to lend towards quite a lot of bad attitudes and a burn out factor. Now we can plan and strategize those rides and we can do it after the hay's baled or before it's cut. And it's just really improved ranch morale along with herd management.

[Tip Hudson:] I'm curious. What are you hearing from other ranchers that have used this? You guys were kind of an early adopter, but at this point there are a significant number of ranchers that are playing with virtual fence even if it's not quite as far along as, you know, your ability to use it. But what are you hearing from other ranchers in the region in their experience with this?

[Jay Smith:] So I've had lots of conversations with the people that have been in it as long as us, and then I've had a lot of preliminary conversations with people that were about to adopt it. And a lot of those people started this last grazing season and I honestly haven't gotten a lot of feedback from them yet. I had a lot of conversations with them before they started. But I haven't got a lot of post grazing conversations yet. I'm looking forward to them and seeing how people did.

[Tip Hudson:] Yeah. What's the most common question that you get from ranchers about your experience?

[Jay Smith:] Will you keep doing it? That's the number one question because I think that's the greatest litmus test is if it's something you want to continue then it must be effective.

[Tip Hudson:] Yeah. Well, I'm thrilled to hear that it has been effective. I think this is one of the more difficult places to apply virtual fence, but it also represents the sorts of places where it's extravagantly expensive to put up new barbed wire to replace the old stuff and probably shouldn't be done. I really appreciate the way you've given your attention and time to this to solve a problem. And as we have I think shown here that doesn't happen unless you have a trusting relationship with the other people that are in the mix. And as the -- when I first started at the University of Idaho I think it was the dean of the college at the time, college of forestry, wildlife, and range -- the name's been changed for a long time now, but I remember him coming in to an introductory natural resources class and talking to kids like me who initially I started at the University of Idaho as a declared wildlife biology major having come from Arkansas and never heard of rangeland ecology. And these are all people like me who wanted to spend time outside and the dean of the college said, "All of the good jobs in this field are people work." You know, you can -- if you want to spend your life in the woods then, you know, go become a timber cruiser or something. But if you want to do -- make meaningful change in the world of natural resources you're going to have to work with people. And that. I've met a lot of ranchers who just don't like to work with people. And maybe you don't, but it appears to me that you've done a good job doing it because that's what you have to do to survive. And I want to thank you for it.

[Jay Smith:] Well, thank you, Tip. Relationships are key to success in life period. And I think you hit on a good subject there that, yeah, you've got to build these building blocks as you go so that when you do want to do something big you have those relationships and that trust and you can move forward.

[Tip Hudson:] Steve, was there anything else you would like to say about this story before we close it out?

[Steve Stuebner:] Well, I guess I think, you know, maybe we just touch on, you know, you mentioned Karen and the research at University of Idaho. Been working on some ear tag technology that'd be -- would not require a cell signal. So there are some other approaches out there I think that are being researched to try to get -- bring costs down for producers with different types of technology. So that sounds exciting to me. And I know Karen is really excited about trying to develop another product there. So I think we may see other things like that moving forward to reduce costs for producer to be able to implement this stuff.

[Tip Hudson:] Yes. These are definitely still early days. So there's a lot of research and development going on, you know, both in trying to build new approaches to the idea of controlling where animals go without using physical fence as well as companies like Vence improving on what they've already got in response to, you know, you don't know what you don't know until you begin trying it and you get hundreds of people using it in real world situations. And they're definitely in to that now thanks to people like Jay who've been willing to give it a go. And so I expect we'll see large changes both in terms of the ease of use and the effectiveness of its functioning and cost going down over the next few years.

[Jay Smith:] I'm really excited about innovation and competition. You know, I kind of view my first virtual fence collar like I view my first cell phone. It was a big leap forward, made a lot of conveniences, but then flash forward to the one we carry today and how much that's changed because of innovation and competition and I just see this virtual fence thing doing the same thing. We're going to look back in 10 years to go, "Look how much we got done with that archaic technology and where it is now." I'm really excited about it.

[Steve Stuebner:] Good point.

[Tip Hudson:] Okay. Jay, last question. If you could get one of these virtual fence companies to add one feature or do one thing different with virtual fence compared to how it works right now, what would that be?

[Jay Smith:] Well, what I'm going to say they're in the works on and it's getting better, but offline mode to -- we can at home look at the map and see where our cows are and then we go up on the mountain and we go to that area which is still big and still steep terrain and there have been times when we've gone to where we know the cattle are and we still haven't been able to find them. And if there was an offline mode where we could keep watching them while we're out of cell service that'd be the next big step for us, the next time saver.

[Tip Hudson:] You mean be able to visualize that on your device.

[Jay Smith:] Yeah. Vence has already got it coming now where you can actually it tracks you in reference to where the collars are so that you can have your phone open and ride towards the cows on the screen until you actually find them. And we used it for the first time just in the last couple days of the grazing season. So I'm looking forward to having it for a full season.

[Tip Hudson:] Yeah. That's good to hear. Well, Jay and Steve, I'll let you get back to your day. Thank you very much for your time. I remain excited about this and again thank you for your time and the time you've taken to talk to people about it when you have a ranch to run.

[Jay Smith:] Tip, thank you for your time. I think it's really important to get the word out. Not that I'm trying to sell or push any one technology, but I truly believe in it and if people are going to try it I'd like them to be able to learn from my mistakes and make their adventure with it easier.

[Steve Stuebner:] Well, good on you, Jay. Thanks very much, Tip. I think it's been a great session. Appreciate it.

[Tip Hudson:] Thank you. Thank you for listening to "The Art of Range" podcast. Links to websites or documents mentioned in each episode are available at artofrange.com and be sure to subscribe to the show through Apple podcasts, Podbean, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting app so that each new episode will automatically show up in your podcast feed. Just search for Art of Range. If you are not a social media addict, don't start now. If you are, please like or otherwise follow the "Art of Range" on Facebook, Linked In, and X, formerly Twitter. We value listener feedback. If you have questions or comments for us to address in a future episode or just want to let me know you're listening, send an email to show@artofrange.com. For more direct communication from me sign up for regular email from the podcast on the home page at artofrange.com. This podcast is produced by Connor's Communications in the college of agricultural, human, and natural resource sciences at Washington State University. The project is supported by the University of Arizona and funded by sponsors. If you're interested in being a sponsor send an email to show@artofrange.com.

[Speaker 1:] The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed by guests of this podcast are their own and does not imply Washington State University's endorsement.