Gallagher Animal Management offers a precision farming ecosystem of digital tools designed to revolutionise the way we farm today.
A technological shift is quietly transforming livestock farming across the globe, unlocking a new era of sustainable agriculture. At the core of this shift is Gallagher Animal Management’s integrated precision farming ecosystem, offering an intelligent suite of tools built to modernise livestock management.
By combining two innovative technologies – eShepherd™ virtual fencing and the Gallagher Auto Weigher remote weight monitoring system – Gallagher is enabling ranchers to balance high productivity and environmental sustainability through precision control.
The precision agriculture imperative
Ranchers today face a perfect storm of challenges: soaring input costs, shrinking labour availability, environmental degradation, and rising regulatory complexity. Traditional methods are no longer enough to support the scale and responsibility required by modern agriculture.
Precision agriculture offers a path forward. By harnessing data and automation, it allows ranchers to make informed decisions in real time – boosting efficiency, improving animal welfare, and restoring land health. Gallagher’s ecosystem stands out by uniting animal behaviour monitoring, virtual boundaries, and cloud-based insights into a scalable, practical solution for regenerative farming.
eShepherd: Virtual fencing for real-world gains
At the core of Gallagher’s system is eShepherd – a GPS-enabled neckband that lets ranchers manage livestock boundaries without the need for traditional fencing. Controlled via a digital interface, it allows virtual paddocks to be created, moved, and monitored remotely. Need to rotate paddocks? Shift a herd? Exclude livestock from a sensitive area? It’s all done in minutes, from anywhere using a desktop app. This not only eliminates the labour and cost of building physical fences but also creates new levels of flexibility in how land is grazed and managed.
A shepherd in your pocket
The neckbands don’t just enforce boundaries – they give ranchers real-time insights into livestock movement and behaviour. Through GPS tracking and app-based control, users can monitor herd locations, respond quickly to issues, and fine-tune their grazing strategies. It’s like having a remote shepherd on-call 24/7.
With a 98% containment rate – including proven effectiveness with bulls – eShepherd is the first solution of its kind to work reliably across breeds and terrains. It reduces the need for costly fencing infrastructure while increasing the flexibility and precision of pasture management.
Smarter farming, cleaner outcomes
Beyond convenience, eShepherd supports core regenerative practices. Rotational grazing, tailored to pasture and soil conditions, becomes easy to implement. This prevents overgrazing, promotes vegetation regrowth, and protects environmentally sensitive areas.
Gallagher developed eShepherd with input from veterinarians, ethologists, and the RSPCA to ensure animal welfare. The neckband is designed for long-term wear, using durable materials and power-efficient components to ensure up to ten years of reliable operation – even in extreme environments like the Australian outback or North American Rocky Mountains.
Real results from the field
Ranchers already using eShepherd are seeing the difference. Nick Jorgensen of Jorgensen Land & Cattle in South Dakota has used the technology to streamline large-scale rotational grazing. By equipping a portion of his herd with eShepherd neckbands, he’s improved pasture utilisation and increased productivity without adding labour or infrastructure.
Spanning 13,000 acres and home to 1,500 Angus females, the ranch faced steep demands with traditional rotational grazing methods. Moving cattle with physical fencing was not only labour-intensive but also inefficient. By adopting virtual fencing, Nick’s team significantly cut down the need for permanent fencing and physical labour.
For Nick, the impact has been twofold: simplified herd management and healthier, more productive pastures.
Nick explained: “We’re mimicking what the bison did here centuries ago. This means longer rest periods for the grass, which rejuvenates the land and fosters a healthier ecosystem overall.”
Encouraged by the system’s success, the company plans to expand virtual fencing to the entire herd within five years.
“Virtual fencing is more than a tech upgrade,” continued Nick. “It’s a paradigm shift in how we think about land stewardship, animal care, and the future of ranching.”
The future of livestock management
As agriculture moves toward smarter, more sustainable systems, eShepherd stands out as a solution built for the long haul. Its focus on animal welfare, land stewardship, and operational efficiency makes it more than a tech upgrade – it’s a step change in how ranchers interact with their animals and their land.
Whether managing hundreds of head or just a few, ranchers adopting eShepherd are finding that precision, flexibility, and sustainability aren’t trade-offs – they’re now achievable, together.
Auto Weigher: Remote monitoring that delivers
Traditional livestock weighing often involves rounding up animals into yards, causing stress for both animals and handlers. The Auto Weigher, developed with StrongBó Agritech, replaces this process with a remote solution that automatically measures partial weights in the paddock and uses algorithms to estimate full body weight.
This innovation gives ranchers access to frequent, accurate weight data without disrupting the herd. It supports better decision-making about feeding, health interventions, mating, and marketing.
Portable and rugged, the Auto Weigher works in remote pastures and complements eShepherd to form a closed-loop system. Real-time insights into animal weight and location help optimise grazing decisions and improve overall herd performance.
Automating regenerative practices
Regenerative agriculture depends on maintaining a delicate balance between pasture consumption and soil recovery. Gallagher’s integrated tools automate this balance. With data on movement, location, and weight gain, ranchers can implement dynamic grazing patterns that adapt to pasture conditions, animal needs, and weather changes.
This is especially valuable in extensive beef systems where large-scale, low-density herds have traditionally been hard to manage with precision. Gallagher’s system brings the accuracy of small-scale dairy operations to the open range, enabling better feed conversion, improved land use, and measurable sustainability outcomes.
And with every season, the platform gets smarter. Its learning engine continuously refines its recommendations based on past outcomes and local conditions, providing increasingly accurate guidance as it grows with the farm.
A complete ecosystem for the future of farming
Gallagher’s precision farming ecosystem represents a major step forward in agricultural technology. By integrating hardware, software, and real-time analytics, it offers a holistic approach to animal and land management.
More than just a set of tools, it is a platform designed to make regenerative, high-output farming accessible and achievable across geographies, herd sizes, and management styles.
With a strong commitment to R&D, global field testing, and farmer-led innovation, Gallagher is not just responding to agricultural challenges, it is helping to shape the future of sustainable food production. By automating the most time-consuming aspects of grazing and monitoring, this system allows ranchers to focus on what truly matters: the health of their animals, the resilience of their land, and the success of their business.
Please note, this article will also appear in the 22nd edition of our quarterly publication.
