12 May 2025

5 minute read

By: Sarah Mikesell

South America

North America

Oceania

Gary Tiller, commercial director of Vence, a subsidiary of Merck Animal Health also known as MSD Animal Health in other parts of the world, spoke to The Cattle Site’s Sarah Mikesell in San Antonio, Texas at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association’s CattleCon about virtual fencing for rotational grazing and cattle management. 

Editor's note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me about Merck Animal Health’s Vence. How does it work?

Vence is a virtual fencing livestock management system for cattle which controls cattle movement, manages grazing, creates virtual fences to dictate grazing behavior and monitors animal location and movement.

If you think about virtual fencing at its very base, think about the invisible fence for your dog. You're basically using a collar that emits a sound and a pulse to influence the behavior of the animal. In our case, we are just wanting these cows to go where we would like them to go and to graze where we would like them to graze.

What's the process if a producer wanted to set up on their farm or ranch?

If you're interested in virtual fencing, you can either reach out to us directly through our sales reps or go online and fill out an information request and somebody will be back with you in literally 24 hours.

We will ask you a series of questions because it's important to understand what your goals are at the ranch. Then, we need to really understand what the terrain is like because every ranch is individual. It's not a one-box solution. Depending on the topography, the size and the number of cows, all these factors will have an impact on what we would recommend to you as a solution.

Tell us a little bit about the physical nature of it. We've got a picture of a cow behind us wearing a sensor. Can you tell us what is referring to?

Basically, the system has three components.

1. Base station – is literally a telecommunication backhaul for the data.
2. Collar – contains the pulse mechanism and the sound to control the behavior. At the same time, it also contains a GPS chip.
3. Chip – can communicate and upload the data packets that would identify where your cow is, the direction it's moving, and those type of things. That gets backhauled through the base station to the cloud, and it comes back down into your proprietary software.

When you open your computer and you log in to your software, you'll see your ranch on a Google map. You'll have to input all your hard fences, your water, your buildings, and things like that. But you'll also be able to see your cows individually based on each collar. Each collar can be assigned individually to an ID number on a cow.

Today, the US has approximately 4 million acres of rangeland, and it's currently under a plan to be able to enable virtual fencing. It’s a large-scale solution. We use it extensively in the West where you have big ranges and fencing. Those types of things may not even be physically possible, but this system still allows the rancher to be able to manage their cattle in those situations.

We’ve talked about use of Vence in the western US, but it could be used in the Midwest or the Southeast – wherever you've got cow-calf operations?

Absolutely. There's no limit to where it can operate. The system is just literally building a communications network around your ranch. Once you have the collars on the cows, you send them the instructions. You're not limited by your geolocation in the US.

What are some of the benefits for the producer or rancher?

There are multiple value propositions for virtual fencing. If you start at the basic idea that I've got to replace fence. You can do the simple economic calculations of what it's going to cost to replace. Then, what is it going to cost me to maintain including labor. That’s a calculation you can use to determine whether this is an good idea for you.

For the same reason, there's significant labor savings to be had whether that's just in moving electric fences. If you're doing rotational grazing, that's also in your cost of gathering cattle. Today with this type of system, you would know where your cattle are then you could move them to a central gathering place and significantly reduce the number of people you need to round up cattle.

Needing new fence is not the only reason you would consider Vence. The return on investment could be there for a lot of different applications?

We like to say there are three pillars to why you would want to use virtual fence.

1. Productivity at the ranch. That's the number one factor because if you can't make money in this business you can't afford to be in this business.
2. Sustainability. How do you manage your natural resources that you're blessed to have as a ranch owner. Whether you own them; whether you're leasing them; or whether you're on a government allotment, this gives you an opportunity to, with intent, manage those lands.
3. Legacy. If you're not profitable and you are not good stewards of the land, there's not going to be anything to pass on to that next generation and the generations that follow.

This application is available in the US, but it's available in other parts of the world, correct?

Currently, Vence is commercially available in the US and Australia. We have pilot programs going on in New Zealand and Canada. As we look to expand, this is a geo product and we will be expanding into Latin America, further into Asia Pacific and obviously into the EU.

This is providing data back to producers. Data is the name of the game right now, right?

Absolutely, and it provides important data back to the producer. Most of the ranchers that you talk to who use this really feel like they know what their cows do. This gives them an opportunity to see and visualize 24/7/365, and learn what their cattle are doing when they’re not around. The data is extremely important.

We also take protecting your data very seriously. That's one of the benefits of working with Merck Animal Health as well. As a human pharmaceutical company, our parent company Merck, we take data privacy very seriously. We have millions and millions of human pharmaceutical customers, and we treat your data on the virtual fencing side the same way we would treat it as if it were your medical information.