Best practices to gather animals for health treatments in rangeland areas
During the first DIGI-Rangeland transnational workshop held in Romania in November 2025, seven farmers from the UK, France, Iceland and Bulgaria discussed their best practices to gather animals from the rangeland areas in order to administer health treatments. The methods used were: drone with heat camera and microphone to push the sheep down from the mountains (Iceland), quad bikes to gather the sheep (UK, Iceland), use of horses to gather the sheep (Iceland), use of nets to contain the sheep (France), use of walkie-talkie to communicate, as well as dogs (UK), and use of GPS collars on some of the sheep to know where the sub-flocks are before gathering (France). Once the animals are gathered, the farmers from these countries use mobile handling facilities to treat the animals, EID tag or ear notch to know the animals are theirs (to ID them), and use of bolus and relay to know where they are (dairy cattle in Bulgaria).
Other comments and best practices from these farmers related to how some of them ‘select’ the animals to keep. The animals straying too far (and known from the GPS information collated) will be culled. The farmers also said they use group chats (e.g. WhatsApp) to decide how to organise the gathering, the routes to use, share of locations. Some also use 3D maps (functionality of iPhone) to show the other shepherds where the gathering routes are (also good for Health & Safety). One farmer also said they take paying tourists to help with the gathers. However, farmers also highlighted the lack of tracks/the need to make new tracks to facilitate gather and reaching the animals. Trees were also a problem to locate the animals.
Additional information
The DIGI-Rangeland project brings together partners from 10 countries, coordinating national networks (France, Romania, Greece, Spain, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Iceland, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland), and also disseminating its knowledge within the Balkan network with its Croatian partner. Consult our publications and documents on the project website: https://digirangeland.eu
DIGItal innovation and data technology network for RANGELAND livestock farming systems
Ongoing | 2025-2029
- Main funding source
- Horizon Europe (EU Research and Innovation Programme)
- Geographical location
- France, Romania, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Iceland, Norway, United kingdom, Switzerland