How do you move large cattle herds to water efficiently?
Hello everyone! My family has a cattle farm with around 250 cows. The cows stay in a large outdoor fenced area with electric fencing. We also have a water/drinking area, but we’ve been facing a problem: when the herd is too far away, many cows don’t go to drink water on their own. They end up dehydrated, sometimes even collapsing from thirst.
Because of this, my grandpa has to move the entire herd to the water area several times a day. Since the pasture is hilly and the herd is large, he ends up walking more than 10 km every day, which is becoming very difficult as he’s getting older.
We were thinking about buying a drone with a speaker/sound system and using it to guide the cattle toward the drinking area, but we don’t know how effective that would actually be. Has anyone here dealt with a similar problem? How do you manage or move your cattle herd efficiently in large grazing areas?
We also tried using dogs, but there were always a few cows left behind, so my grandpa still had to go move them himself.