Where’s your Bull? Remote assessment of bull location and breeding activity on pasture using GPS technology January 2025
Researcher Dr. Susan Markus, livestock research scientist, Lakeland College, with funding from Results Driven Agriculture Research (RDAR)
Summary Pasture checking cattle during the breeding season isn’t much fun when we can’t find the bulls. Increased land competition means that western Canadian commercial cow-calf operations are forced to use marginal or heavily wooded, expansive grazing lands in remote area. Remote sensing and automation to manage these inaccessible pastures is appealing, particularly when considering location, time and labour demands. The applied research livestock research team investigated direct-to-satellite monitoring of cattle on pasture using GPS ear tags to locate bulls and monitor breeding.
Background Beef cowherd open rate typically averages <8%, with higher open rates more common and concerning under these heavily forested pastures. New technology (i.e., smart tags with accelerometers), capable of capturing individual animal identity, movement, activity budgets, and GPS tracking, appeared promising to provide insight into bull libido.