1. System overview
Animal welfare is central to Halter
In 2016, Halter was founded on our vision to unlock the connection between humans and animals. Animal welfare is central to our founding, our values and our system. It’s central to the decisions we make which advance our system.
The AgResearch Animal Ethics Committee in New Zealand approved research projects associated with the development of the product. For Halter, this was an important step in our early research and development journey that allowed us to undertake critical research that was safe and in adherence with New Zealand’s official animal welfare guidelines.
Today, Halter is the world’s only system that combines virtual fencing and animal guidance technologies. More than 150,000 animals and hundreds of farms are now using Halter. Our product development is informed by scientific literature and research on animal welfare, by Halter’s Animal Welfare Charter (section 3), by our years of experience observing and training animals, by our deep dataset on cow behaviour and by working closely with veterinarians and animal behaviour experts.
Virtual fencing and animal guidance
Cows wear a collar, and are trained to follow the collar’s guidance cues. Using the Halter app on their phone, farmers remotely shift their cows around the farm and set up virtual fences for grazing in paddocks. This reduces the need for physical fences, and motorbikes and dogs to move cows.
The collar guides a cow using two primary cues: sound and vibration.
Sound cues give animals directional guidance if they cross a virtual boundary or to turn them towards a new break, or exit point;
Vibration cues encourage animals to walk in the correct direction.
The collar also uses a secondary cue - a low-energy electric pulse - that is used to reinforce the two primary cues if they are ignored. The pulse is mainly used during the training period (see section 7) as animals learn to associate the consistent development of the primary cues with escalation to a secondary cue (pulse) unless they change their direction. Once animals are trained, the pulse is rarely used (see sections 5 and 6 for more information). A trained animal can choose to change their direction or can ignore the primary cues knowing the consequences of doing so (the pulse). The energy of this pulse is set to the lowest level that will dissuade a cow from ignoring the sound cues, if it is set any lower, they will ignore it. We refer to this secondary cue as a ‘pulse’ because it is significantly weaker in energy than the ‘shock’ from a standard electric fence. The maximum strength of Halter’s collar pulse is 0.18 joules, delivered in 20 microseconds, which is significantly less energy than the shock received from a typical mains-powered electric fence (powered by energizer units ranging from 18 to 40 joules).
If a cow moves beyond a virtual boundary, sound cues (an increasing frequency of beeps) are used to encourage the cow to move back within the break. Cows receive ample time to correct their direction and as long as they make progress to return to the break, they won’t receive a pulse. The precise time frame depends on the individual cow and their behaviour at the time, and is informed by our research into millions of days of cow behaviour to ensure cows have ample time to respond. The moment a cow moves her head in the correct direction, even only slightly, the system detects this instantly and the sound cues ease (beeping interval reduces); if she starts to walk back towards the break, the cues stop. Only if the cow chooses to ignore the primary cues and they have reached their maximum threshold, will a pulse be applied.
The pulse is used to reinforce the primary cues of sound and vibration. Because the pulse is predictable and controllable for cows, no trained cow receives a pulse she wasn't expecting. A cow will never receive a pulse without first receiving, and ignoring, the primary sound and vibration cue. The roles of the two sensory cues do not overlap, meaning different cues are never given at the same time.
Halter’s guidance system allows cows to express their normal behaviour. Once trained, the guidance cues that a typical cow receives each day are almost entirely sound and vibration. Cows are intelligent, so they learn and adapt quickly to the Halter system. Once they associate the sound cue with crossing a virtual boundary, they quickly learn to correct their direction and avoid a pulse. The typical cow receives primary cues (sound and vibration) for only 0.1% of the day (1.6 minutes per day²), meaning that for over 99% of the day they receive no cues.
(i) Sound cue
The sound cue is a benign primary cue that gives animals directional guidance if they begin crossing a virtual boundary, or it turns them towards a new break or exit point. The volume is set low enough to not cause any distress. The sound cue is an increasing frequency of beeps, similar to a car’s reversing sensor, and is designed to be quiet enough to direct only the cow paired with that collar, and not adjacent cows.
Most dairy cows have already learnt to avoid electric fences. With electric fences, the primary cue is the visual cue; when they see a fence, they learn to avoid it to not trigger the secondary cue of an electric shock. Halter substitutes this primary visual cue with a sound cue. Instead of seeing a physical fence, cows with Halter hear where a virtual fence is. The sound cues complement a cow’s senses; cows have better hearing than humans, over a wider range of frequencies and volumes. Visually cows cannot judge distance and depth well as they only have a relatively small area of binocular vision and a binocular blind spot directly in front of them (Mounaix et al., 2014).
(ii) Vibration cue
The vibration cue is a primary cue, with a similar sensation to a mobile phone vibrating, and serves these roles:
Signals an impending change in activity, such as a shift to the dairy shed or to a new pasture allocation.
Cows that are being guided by the sound cues receive a vibration cue when they start heading in the right direction.
Encourage consistent cow movement to the dairy shed. If a cow stops walking forward during a shift to the dairy shed, vibration cues occur. If a cow recommences walking, the vibration will cease. If she stays stationary, the intensity of the vibration gradually increases over a 30 second period, and if the cow chooses to ignore these cues (that she is trained to understand and respond to), the pulse is applied.
(iii) Electric pulse
The low-energy electric pulse is an aversive cue used if cows choose to ignore the primary sound and vibration cues. The maximum strength of Halter’s collar pulse is 0.18 joules, delivered in 20 microseconds, which is significantly less energy than the received shock from a typical mains-powered electric fence (powered by energizer units ranging from 18 to 40 joules).
The energy of the pulse is set to the lowest level that will dissuade a cow from ignoring the sound cues, if it is set any lower, they ignore it. Most Halter staff have felt a pulse generated by a Halter collar, and the sensation is similar to the feeling of a firm slap on the wrist.
Whilst the maximum strength of the pulse is 0.18 joules, for most cows, the Halter system customises and delivers lower energy pulses based on each cow’s individual tolerance to the pulse and their determination to push boundaries. This is a critical feature for animal welfare, given cows have different thresholds to push boundaries. For example, some cows will choose to push past virtual boundaries in the pursuit of fresh pasture. This feature is also consistent with the recommendations from the UK’s Animal Welfare Committee’s opinion on the welfare implications of using virtual fencing systems (see section 5).
Managing livestock on any farm requires the occasional use of aversive cues to contain and shift them. Aversive cues are varied and include: humans shouting, clapping and waving arms, the use of rattles or sticks, dogs, motorbikes, and electric fences. For animal welfare purposes, Halter uses the least amount of aversion necessary to contain or move individual cows and we have designed the system to give highly predictable and controllable cues as these have been shown to be less aversive (Kearton et al., 2020). The Halter system uses an electric pulse as an aversive cue because:
It is adjustable - the energy can be customised and reduced to the absolute minimum necessary for each individual animal; and
It is designed to be highly predictable and avoidable.
Furthermore, the Halter cues are consistent. Every day the cow is guided with the same primary cues (sound and vibration), as opposed to the wide range of conventional cues which can vary considerably from day to day, for example across different farm staff. Cue consistency is essential to predictability and therefore efficiency of outcomes achieved and to the animal retaining a feeling of control.
For each cow, the Halter system finds the optimal balance between the strength of the pulse and the frequency of pulses (i.e. how the collar delivers energy) to achieve a desired change in direction from the cow without unnecessary agitation.
² Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture - ‘Managing dairy cows with Halter virtual fencing technology’, Dr Megan Verdon (preliminary study results, September 2023)
