For the past 10 years, lecturer in Agriculture at CQUniversity, Dr Jaime Manning, has undertaken research with sheep using on-animal sensors to investigate various health and welfare issues.
As lead researcher, in 2019, she commenced a project funded by the Australian Wool Innovation and Advance Queensland, examining the extreme distances travelled by rangeland sheep in Australia.
Numerous applications for on-animal sensors, or smart tags, have highlighted their potential for everything from simply knowing where your animals are to more complex problems such as lambing and predation detection.
But yet, Dr Manning said, very little is known about how far sheep travel in rangeland environments.
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Previous reports date back to the 1970s that relied on visual observations, which meant someone watched sheep from a distance and estimated their location.
"Technology like on-animal sensors or smart tags has dramatically changed how we obtain information on sheep, especially in rangeland environments," Dr Manning said.
"They are also emerging as a practical and valuable tool for rangeland sheep and will bring significant benefits for sheep producers and woolgrowers through improved management decisions and intervention measures.
"In turn, this can have implications for the future of animal welfare, monitoring and legislative compliance."
The study followed Merino ewes and wethers at Dunraven, a 25,495-hectare sheep station at Barcaldine, Queensland.
The animals were fitted with on-animal sensors on neck collars, incorporating similar technology to a smartwatch or Fitbit.
Similar to how a Fitbit tracks users' steps for the day, the collars provide researchers with information on the sheep's location and the distance they have travelled for the day.
"We forget how often we use location on our own devices - maps, booking an Uber or finding a point of interest," Dr Manning said.
"The same location information can also be useful for our livestock sector to highlight the utilisation of paddocks, access to water or assist a producer locating their animals during mustering."
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The differences in distance travelled were due to several factors such as temperature or heat stress, water location and pasture availability.
Still, the extreme distances some sheep travelled were alarming, Dr Manning said.
The data revealed huge variations between individual sheep, with the daily distance travelled ranging from 1.87 to 16.94 kilometres per day.
"The extreme distances travelled by some sheep was of huge concern due to the timing of the study, under drought conditions where available feed was very scarce," Dr Manning said.
"This can have severe implications on their productivity such as unnecessary energy expenditure and consequent welfare implications.
"During periods of drought, with limited feed available, it is not ideal for an animal to travel such great distances."
"The data gives us real time information that we can use immediately to address issues to the livestock that otherwise we would not see for a number of days and in some cases save that animals life"
Paul Doneley from Dunraven, highlighted the animal welfare, production and management implications that information from on-animal sensors can have for him.
"It is great to be a part of this trial to see how our livestock are acting in their environment when impacted by pests, nutrition and heat," he said.
"With this data we have been able to modify how we run our operation.
"Being part of this trial has shown us just how little we know about how our stock are acting when there are extreme heat and drought conditions."
Dr Manning will present her research at the AAAS Conference in Cairns from July 5-7.
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