Two Vermont graziers shared anecdotes about using virtual fencing technology at the 2025 Gathering of Good Graziers conference put on by the Vermont Grass Farmers Association.

Aimee Braxmeier of Slippery Slope Goats in Landgrove, VT, uses virtual fencing to contract graze about 200 goats. Ben Nottermann of Snug Valley Farm in Hardwick, VT, uses the technology to graze about 45 head of beef cattle.

Both graziers use a system developed in Norway called Nofence. Each of their animals (over six months old as recommended by Nofence) wears a specialized solar-powered collar equipped with a SIM card that connects to GPS, cellular bandwidth and Bluetooth.

Using the Nofence smartphone app, Braxmeier and Nottermann define the boundaries of a virtual fence paddock on a map, and the livestock is turned into the paddock. Instead of an animal getting conditioned to a visual cue (an electric fence), they are conditioned to an auditory cue.

“Basically, you create a barrier with your boundary, and as the animals approach the boundary, it starts a series of tones. They get progressively louder and more intense as they move closer to the boundary. For goats, I think it’s seven tones before they get shocked,” said Braxmeier. Unlike physical fencing, livestock will not get shocked when they attempt to re-enter the paddock.

While virtual fencing is commonplace in Europe, the technology has only recently been deployed in the U.S.

On Cellular Connectivity

Both Braxmeier and Nottermann think that Nofence works best when they have a strong, stable cellular signal. Although the fencing function of Nofence only needs GPS to work, having a strong cellular connection allows the user to receive real-time updates and notifications. The cellular signal also makes it easy to quickly update boundaries.

“You can edit the pasture boundaries and make moves without cell service, but you physically have to be within 150 to 200 feet of the collar for it to update via Bluetooth, which is really slow because it goes sequentially,” said Nottermann.

On Training

Training livestock to the virtual fencing system has been fairly straightforward for both graziers. Braxmeier’s goats only took a few hours to become accustomed to the auditory cue.

Nottermann trained his beef herd in about three days. He placed them in a large paddock with a high tensile perimeter fence and divided the paddock so that there was only one virtual fence line. This way, they can learn the tones and consequences without the risk of running into an additional virtual fence line.

On Additional Perimeter Fencing

Because Braxmeier is often grazing steep terrain such as ski trails and transmission lines, she uses Nofence without a physical perimeter fence. “It’s definitely changed my life and my entire business. I never thought this would be possible, and the places I’m grazing now we could never have gotten into,” she said.

When she’s grazing close to residential areas and busy roads, however, she will still use electric netting to create a highly electrified perimeter.

Nottermann’s farm was already equipped with a single strand of high-tensile perimeter fencing when he started using Nofence, so he continues to use the physical fence. Primarily, he uses two “strands” of virtual fencing as he strip grazes across his pasture system. He sets the parameters of the virtual fence outside of the perimeter fencing in order to get the herd to graze up to the physical wire.

Nottermann noted that new graziers looking to use virtual fencing technology may be able to get by with a simpler, cheaper perimeter fence.

On Data Collection

With their smartphones, Braxmeier and Nottermann can see the location of each of their animals. “It’s really interesting to see where they spend time. Obviously their water tubs, their mineral tubs and the shade. It opens up a whole new level of what has the animal’s attention – what they’re eating and why they’re eating it.”

While Nottermann hasn’t extracted any scientific data from these reports, he looks forward to learning more about why certain areas of his pastures are more appealing than others.

Another app feature allows graziers to receive notifications regarding inactive animals. Braxmeier can look at her smartphone and see, for example, that a specific animal has moved 40% less than the rest of the herd. This is her cue that the animal may need its feet trimmed or that it might have a sore foot.

Both graziers look forward to Nofence updates that may provide heat detection or information about rumination.

Braxmeier noted she did have to turn off Nofence notifications during her sleeping hours. “What am I going to do in the middle of the night? Am I going to hop on the side-by-side to go chase goats? … I turned off all my notifications except that ‘not moving for six hours’ one,” she said.

Notterman too had to limit his number of notifications because they quickly drained the charge on his smartphone.

On Hardware

Although they’re rugged and can withstand a plunge into a water tub, Nofence collars are not infallible. Braxmeier has some goats that have learned that they can keep grazing despite receiving several tonal notifications. This causes the batteries to drain, and the solar panel cannot keep up with the charging, requiring her to round up the animal, remove the collar and change the battery.

Nottermann does not have this problem with his cattle. He finds that the collars stay charged, especially the second generation which came with modifications to the charging technology. His problems came from not putting on the collars tight enough, resulting in lost collars. Fortunately, the collars can usually be found by tracking them on the Nofence app.

On Economics

Nofence collars require a significant upfront investment and incur a monthly service charge per collar. Nottermann, however, is saving about 45 minutes each day in time spent fencing and figures his payback time is about three years (based on his original purchase of 65 collars). He still needs to move water tubs and mineral feeders.

“This is more economically viable grazing down south or if you’re bale grazing and not bringing your animals back into a barn,” he said.

Braxmeier has no doubt that the Nofence system has been a good investment. “I was running weedwackers, and I had employees dragging electro-netting through stuff that you can’t even walk through. So this was like a total no-brainer for my operation,” she said.