If you run sheep or goats and you want virtual fencing, your choice is already made. Not because one system is better — because three of the four don't make a collar that fits your animals.
That's not a sales line. It's on their own websites.
- Halter: "Halter collars are designed for cattle only. They aren't made for sheep, goats, or horses."
- Gallagher eShepherd: designed for cattle over 440 lb, and "not suitable for sheep or goats."
- Vence: "focused solely on cattle operations," with trials running on other species.
Nofence is the only virtual fencing system you can buy in the US today that fences small ruminants. We sell it, so weigh that as you like — but the three sentences above aren't ours.
Why cattle collars don't scale down
It isn't just size. A collar built for a 1,200 lb cow is solving a different problem.
Weight matters more on a 130 lb ewe than on a cow — the Nofence sheep and goat collar runs about 1.12 lb on the animal, which is a different design target from a cattle neckband. Goats browse through brush that would tear hardware off, and they are considerably more inventive about testing a boundary than cattle are. Flock behaviour also differs: sheep move as a unit, which changes how a virtual boundary is learned and held.
And small ruminants are usually the animals you want on the ground that virtual fence exists for — steep, brushy, rocky country nobody was ever going to string wire across.
What you're actually buying
The Nofence SG2.5 is a solar-powered GPS collar. You draw the boundary in the app. As an animal approaches the line the collar gives an audio warning — about 82 dB at 3.3 ft — and only delivers a mild pulse if it keeps going. Most learn the sound within a few days and stop taking the pulse at all.
From Nofence's published specification:
- Weight: approximately 1.12 lb on the animal
- Power: continuous solar charging into a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, plus a wired charger
- Rated: IP67, from −4°F to 140°F
- Connectivity: LTE Cat-M1 and 2G cellular, Bluetooth, GPS and GLONASS
- Warranty: 5 years
Collars also relay to each other through Nofence's HerdNet mesh, so an animal sitting in a cellular dead spot can still reach the network through the rest of the flock. On broken country that matters more than it sounds.
Nofence reports a 99.7% containment rate across its fleet and more than 10,000 producers using the system.
Where this actually earns its keep
Brush and weed control
This is the clearest case. Goats will clear blackberry, multiflora rose, honeysuckle and cedar from ground you cannot get a tractor onto and would not want to fence. Virtual fence lets you put them exactly where the brush is, move them as they clear it, and pull them out without dismantling anything.
Contract grazing
Solar sites, municipal ground, public land, utility corridors. Multiple sites, one app, and — the part that matters commercially — no infrastructure left behind when the job is done. You are not amortising fence across a contract that might not renew.
Leased ground
The same logic on your own operation. Ground you might not have next season is ground you should not be setting posts in.
Creek bottoms and sensitive areas
Exclusion zones work in reverse — fence animals out of riparian areas, food plots, young timber or a spring, without building anything. This is also the use case that attracts conservation funding.
What it won't do
It is not a predator barrier. This matters more for sheep and goats than for cattle, and we would rather say it plainly than let you find out. A virtual fence is not a physical barrier. Very few fences stop a determined predator anyway — the difference is what happens when one gets in. With collars, your animals' survival instinct wins: they will push through the pulses and scatter rather than being boxed into a corner. You will see it in their activity data or get an escape alert, and the GPS gives you a practical way to find an animal that has scattered or been hurt.
If predator pressure is your main problem, pair virtual fence with a physical perimeter, or with guardian animals. Do not replace one with the other.
It does not replace your perimeter fence. Virtual fence is a cross-fencing tool. You still need a real boundary — and USDA takes the same view, which we cover in why virtual fence still needs a real perimeter.
It needs handling facilities. Fitting collars is a day's work through a chute or a handling system, plus a training period while animals learn the audio cue.
There is a minimum order. Five collars, one per animal. So the entry point is a small flock, not a trial pair.
Does cost-share cover it?
Often, yes — but it depends on your state. NRCS made virtual fencing payable under the Fence (382) and Prescribed Grazing (528) practice standards from FY2025, and several states have published payment scenarios. Brush management and riparian exclusion are exactly the resource concerns that make an application strong.
We have written the detail up separately in does EQIP pay for virtual fencing? — including the restriction that catches most people out.
How to work out whether it pencils
Run your own numbers in our Virtual Fence Savings Calculator. It prices collars against building the equivalent cross-fence from our own catalog, at our real prices, and it will tell you when netting and polybraid are the cheaper answer. Sometimes they are — particularly on small, flat, contiguous ground.
Where collars usually win for small ruminants is the ground you are not currently grazing at all.
Still working it out?
Call us on 888-251-3934. A grazier, not a call center. Have your acres, your flock size and the piece of ground you have in mind, and it is a short conversation. If netting is the better answer for your place, we will tell you — we sell that too.
Nofence SG2.5 sheep & goat collar →
How the four virtual fencing systems compare →
Electric netting for sheep & goats →
Species restrictions quoted above are from each company's own published material, accessed September 2026. Nofence SG2.5 specifications are from Nofence's published product specification. Confirm current pricing, minimum order and subscription terms with us before ordering.
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