Questions & Answers
ABOUT VIRTUAL FENCES
A virtual fence is a digital solution that allows you to contain your grazing animals without physical fences. Using our app and advanced GPS collars, you can keep your animals within invisible boundaries using audio cues. Create and adjust these boundaries flexibly, directly from your phone.
Skygraze consists of two main components:
- A GPS collar worn by all adult animals.
- An app where you create and manage your virtual fences and keep track of your animals.
All adult animals wear Skygraze virtual fencing collars. The system is easy to manage through an app, where you can create and adjust your virtual paddocks in seconds.
When an animal approaches a virtual boundary, the collar emits an audio cue. If the animal turns around, the sound stops immediately. If it continues forward, a mild electric pulse is delivered.
Both research and practical experience show that animals quickly learn to turn around in response to the audio cue, allowing them to avoid the electric pulse altogether.
Key Facts About How the Skygraze System Works
All adult animals must wear a Skygraze collar.
Audio Cue First – The animal is always warned with an audio cue when approaching the invisible boundary.
Electric Pulse if the Animal Continues Forward – If the animal does not turn around in response to the audio cue, the collar delivers a mild electric pulse. This always follows an audio cue.
Built-in Limit on Electric Pulses – Maximum 3 – Once the limit is reached, the audio and electric pulse functions are disabled, and the animal is registered as having escaped in the app.
Remains Visible on the Map– The system continues to transmit the animal’s location, even if it escapes from the virtual paddock.
Automatic Reactivation – The audio cue and electric pulse functions are automatically reactivated when the animal re-enters the virtual paddock, whether it is guided back in or returns on its own. Animals never receive an audio cue or electric pulse when entering a paddock, only when moving towards the boundary to leave it.
Skygraze is designed for cattle and sheep. In Sweden, virtual fencing is currently approved only for these two species.
No, you don’t need any base stations or fixed installations on your farm. All you need is a smartphone, the Skygraze app, and a collar for each animal.
We are a fully Swedish company with local manufacturing in Sweden. Our system uses advanced dual-band GPS technology, delivering highly accurate positioning even in challenging terrain, such as dense forests and mountainous areas.
All electronics are housed in a top-mounted unit on the animal’s neck, providing optimal positioning for both satellite communication and solar charging.
The system also features a unique built-in microphone that verifies that the collar has actually emitted an audio cue before an electric pulse can be delivered. No audio cue means no electric pulse, helping ensure good animal welfare.
Yes, in most cases, Skygraze can completely replace traditional fencing. However, there are situations where a physical fence may still be necessary or advisable, for example along a major road with heavy traffic.
There are many benefits to virtual fencing. Here are just a few:
Time Savings:Spend significantly less time putting up and maintaining fences, and searching for animals during daily checks.
Lower Infrastructure Costs:Reduce the need for fence posts and wire.
Make Full Use of Pastureland:Graze areas that are physically difficult or expensive to fence off.
Flexible Grazing Management:Easily manage grazing pressure with precision.
Promote Biodiversity:Graze where it’s needed most and easily exclude sensitive areas.
Real-Time Monitoring: Track your animals’ locations and identify unusual behaviour early.
Escape Alerts: Receive instant notifications on your phone if an animal moves outside the virtual paddock.
Activity Monitoring: Gain greater insight into your animals’ health and movement patterns.
There are many ways to use the Skygraze system, but at its core, it’s about being able to fence in your animals and manage grazing pressure across your pastures with great precision, all at the touch of a few buttons on your phone.
Below are some examples of how the technology can be used.
Strip Grazing:Gradually expand the grazing area by moving the virtual boundary step by step.
Rotational Grazing:Easily move animals between different sections of pasture to make the most of the vegetation and allow the grass to recover.
Post-Harvest Grazing on Arable Land: Make use of regrowth on arable land in late autumn without having to put up temporary fencing.
Grazing Hard-to-Reach Areas:Easily fence off smaller or irregularly shaped areas, such as wooded field margins and patches of woodland within fields.
Exclusion Zones:Create invisible “fences within fences” to protect animals from hazards such as waterlogged ground, waterways or dangerous areas, or to protect sensitive plants, trees and wildlife for specific periods.
Getting started is easy and involves just a few basic steps: download the app and set up your farm, familiarise yourself with the technology, fit the collars and train your animals in a training paddock, before using the system across your pastures.
Allow plenty of time for preparation and training at the start. This creates a sense of security for the animals and a calm start for you as a livestock owner
If there is a lot of activity around your pastures, it is wise to inform people about the technology to avoid misunderstandings. Skygraze will offer ready-made information signs to print out and put up by the pasture, as well as text templates you can share. There will also be an option to share information about the animals' location via QR codes.
THE VIRTUAL FENCE COLLAR
Yes, all adult animals must wear collars. If any animals go without and move outside the boundary, it can create stress in the herd when the others cannot follow. Exceptions apply to young calves and lambs following their mothers; they do not need collars as they naturally stay with the herd.
Skygraze offers collars for cattle and sheep. To use the technology, the animal must be mentally mature enough to understand the connection between the audio signal and turning back, as well as physically large and strong enough to wear the collar without affecting its natural movement patterns.
Please note: If you use collars on young and growing animals, you need to check and adjust the size regularly during the grazing season so that the collar does not become too tight.
The Skygraze collar is placed around the animal's neck with the unit on top of the nape and a counterweight under the neck that helps keep the unit in the correct position. The collar should fit securely, but not so tightly that it cannot rotate back if it slips out of alignment.
Too loose: Risk of the collar falling off or the chain not making sufficient contact to deliver the shock.
Too tight: Risk of discomfort and chafing, as well as the counterweight being unable to rotate the collar back into place.
Tip: Restrain the animal when putting on or taking off the collar. This makes fitting easier and reduces the risk of injury to both you and the animal.
The collar weighs approximately 1 kg for cattle and 650 grams for sheep.
Yes. The Skygraze collar is developed to be worn by the animals outdoors and to withstand rain, water, and cold weather.
THE ANIMALS & LEARNING
At the invisible boundary, the collar emits an audio signal. If the animal does not turn around, a mild electric shock is given. The sound acts as a warning, and by turning back, the animal avoids the electric shock. Instead of sight, which animals use with traditional electric fences, they navigate here using sound.
Both research and practical experience show that animals quickly learn to associate the audio cue with turning around. However, individual animals learn differently: some explore the boundary more actively and receive more audio cues, while others hang back and learn by observing their herd mates.
For animals to learn to respond to the audio cue in a safe and animal-friendly way, you need to provide the right conditions by training them in a controlled environment. Before using the system to its full potential, animals should therefore be trained in a smaller, physically fenced paddock with simple virtual boundaries.
Allow approximately one week before moving your animals from the training paddock to their intended grazing area. Most animals take just a day or so to understand the connection between the audio cue and turning around. However, learning times vary between individuals and groups, and also depend on how the training is carried out and how often the animals approach the boundary.
The Goal of Training: Animals should feel completely confident that turning around in response to the audio cue means they will not receive an electric pulse, regardless of where the cue occurs. A solid foundation through proper training is essential for the system to work effectively in the long term.
Training is an essential part of ensuring that the technology works effectively, both for you as a user and for the well-being of your animals. Training takes place in stages in a smaller, physically fenced paddock, allowing the animals to learn how the system works in a safe and controlled environment:
Familiarisation:Allow the animals to get used to wearing the collars and being in the training paddock, without any active virtual boundaries.
First Boundary:Activate a single virtual boundary in an open, flat area of the paddock, allowing the animals to learn at their own pace to turn around when they hear the audio cue.
Progress Gradually: Once all animals consistently turn around in response to the audio cue, gradually introduce more boundaries before moving them to their intended grazing area.
Yes, this is a great way to get to know the system! Create a test pasture in the app and cross the virtual boundary with the collar in your hand. This allows you to listen to the audio signal and see in the app how the system reacts when you turn around or go too far. (As long as you do not touch the chain, you will not receive an electric shock.)
The training pasture must be physically fenced and appropriately sized for the herd—neither too small (making the animals feel cramped) nor too large (causing them to rarely reach the boundary).
Placement: Place the training boundary on open, flat ground at a safe distance from water, feed, and resting areas.
Overview: Choose a pasture located centrally on the farm for easy monitoring.
Pasture: Ensure there is sufficient grazing for the entire training period.
When an animal reaches the invisible boundary, the collar emits an audio signal warning it to turn around. The audio signal rises in pitch as the animal moves away from the pasture, but falls in pitch as soon as the animal turns back. The animals quickly learn what the different tones mean. If the animal turns back, the sound stops immediately and no electric shock is given.
The audio signal sounds for a maximum of 8 seconds before an electric shock is delivered if the animal does not turn back. During these 8 seconds, the animal has an audio zone outside the virtual boundary where it can move freely to have time to react and turn around calmly.
If the animal continues forward without turning, the collar starts a new audio warning cycle.
Skygraze's system features a built-in safety limitation of a maximum of three sequences of sound and electric shock. If the animal has not turned back after three sequences:
The audio and electric shock functions are turned off.
The animal is immediately registered as escaped in the app so you can take action.
The animal's position is naturally always shown in real time in the app, regardless of whether the animal is inside or outside the pasture.
Escapes are rare once the animals have completed basic training and learned how the system works.
Just like with traditional fencing, however, animals can be spooked by external factors. The advantage of virtual fencing is that you have full control around the clock. You see the animals' position in real time on your phone and receive an instant alert if an animal were to cross the boundary, allowing you to act quickly.
Animals can always move freely back into the virtual pasture. On the way back, neither audio signals nor electric shocks are given. When the animal crosses the boundary on its return, the system automatically reactivates. You do not need to do anything manually in the app, and you also receive a notification on your phone as soon as the animal has returned.
Once the animals have learned how the system works, they react very calmly to the audio signal. They quickly learn what the different pitch levels mean and how much time they have to turn around.
It is completely normal for certain individuals to seek out the virtual boundary more often than others and receive several hundred audio signals a day. It simply shows that the animals feel secure with the system and use the sound as natural guidance on the pasture to know where they are allowed to go.
PASTURES AND BOUNDARIES
You create your virtual pastures directly in the Skygraze app in just a minute. By placing points on the map, a pasture is created over the area where you want the animals to graze. You can easily zoom in on the map for more precise placement of your boundary.
Keep in mind that it should be easy for the animals to understand which direction to go when the audio signal is activated. Do not place boundaries on steep downhill slopes or dense brushwood where it is difficult to stop and turn around. Also avoid sharp corners and narrow corridors. There should be a distance of approximately 20 meters between boundaries so that the animals do not receive audio signals from multiple directions at the same time.
Never place a virtual boundary directly next to water, feed, minerals, or resting areas. These areas must be completely clear of audio signals so that the animals always feel safe visiting them. When you change the pasture's shape in the app, always check that these important resources do not end up too close to the boundary or even outside the pasture.
With the Skygraze system, you can fence in areas of any size. The only technical limit lies in the number of corner and boundary points you set in the app when drawing the pasture. The system allows up to 250 points per pasture, giving you tremendous flexibility to shape even very large and complex grazing lands.
In the app, there is a feature where you can choose to import a specific pasture based on the Swedish Board of Agriculture's maps. Keep in mind, however, that depending on the shape of the land parcel, the resulting shape of the pasture can be tricky for the animals to understand, and the placement of the boundaries may need to be adjusted so that the animals can handle them properly.
Yes, absolutely. If you place the virtual boundary inside an older or lower-quality fence, the animals will turn around before reaching the physical fence.
If, on the other hand, the animals are to move along a physical fence, it is important to consider the placement of the virtual boundary so that narrow angles or tight corridors are not created where the animals might feel trapped. The distance should be approximately 20 meters.
When the animal reaches the virtual boundary, the audio signal is activated. The animal then has up to 8 seconds to react and turn around in peace and quiet; the area outside the boundary is referred to as the audio zone. Because the animal has time to move a short distance beyond the boundary while the sound plays, it means there is no abrupt stop exactly on the drawn line.
💡 Keep in mind: Always draw your virtual boundary with a margin of safety away from areas you strictly want to protect, such as roads, cropland, or a neighbor's property.
Yes, you can have an unlimited number of pastures active at the same time on your farm. This makes it easy to manage several different animal groups.
Yes, you can easily change the shape, move the boundary, and make the area larger or smaller on a pasture even while it is active. This is a convenient way to fine-tune the boundaries if you discover that a line has been placed slightly off in the terrain or if you want to redirect grazing.
An exclusion zone is used to mark off specific areas inside a virtual pasture. It is ideal when you want to protect animals from hazards (such as marshy ground or steep slopes) or preserve sensitive nature (such as nesting birds and plants).
The boundaries work just like the outer pasture boundary; the animal receives audio signals. You can easily create, modify, or remove the zones directly in the app at any time.
⚠️ Keep in mind: Do not place the exclusion zone too close to the outer pasture boundary. This can create corridors that are too narrow, making it difficult for the animals to navigate without receiving audio signals from two directions.
What should I keep in mind when designing a pasture where animals will be released for the first time?
Keep it simple in the beginning, especially if the animals have recently completed training! Start with a pasture that has boundaries that are as simple and straight as possible. Once you see that the group moves confidently and handles the boundaries well, you can gradually begin using more advanced boundary layouts.
THE APP AND ITS FUNCTIONS
In the app, you manage your entire grazing operation with just a few button presses:
Invite and manage members and create farms
Add and remove animals
Connect collars to animals
Create, adjust, and move virtual pastures.
Lägga till exkluderingszoner inuti hagar.
Flytta djur eller grupper mellan olika hagar.
Hantera aviseringar.
The app gives you comprehensive information about your animals and equipment:
Locations:Real-time location tracking for all animals.
Events:Number of audio cues, electric pulses and escapes, tracked both individually and at group level.
Map Visualisation:See exactly where an event occurred on the map and which animal was involved.
Status:Battery level and mobile network/GPS connectivity for each individual collar.
Grazing Patterns:Heatmaps showing grazing pressure and animal movements within the paddock.
Yes! The app shows your animals’ real-time locations on a map. This gives you an instant overview of the entire herd, saving you time during daily checks and giving you peace of mind when you’re not on the farm.
Yes. With our Play feature, you can replay your animals’ movements over time. See exactly where they have been, where any audio cues, electric pulses or escapes occurred, and which animal was involved.
You also have access to a heatmap showing where your animals have spent the most time in the paddock over the past 24 hours or week.
Yes, you’ll receive instant notifications on your phone when something requires your attention, such as when an animal escapes or an individual receives an unusually high number of electric pulses.
This means you don’t have to monitor the app constantly. You’ll be alerted as soon as something out of the ordinary occurs.
You can easily customise which notifications you receive and when they are sent, according to your own needs.
Yes, multiple people can share responsibility for managing your animals. You can easily invite others and assign different access levels in the app.
If you have animals at several locations, you can also create multiple farms to keep your herds organised separately.
Yes, the battery status of each individual collar is clearly displayed in the app, so you can easily keep track of the charge level. Skygraze collars are designed to run throughout the grazing season without needing to be recharged.
GPS, MOBILE NETWORK & CONNECTIVITY
Skygraze collars use satellites to determine each animal’s position. We use advanced dual-band GPS technology, which receives signals on two frequencies simultaneously. This provides greater accuracy and more reliable positioning than single-band GPS, helping the collars perform well even in challenging terrain, such as dense forests and mountainous areas.
Thanks to our dual-band GPS technology, Skygraze offers highly accurate positioning. However, no GPS technology is accurate to the millimetre. A virtual boundary should therefore not be treated as a perfectly sharp line. Remember to allow for the audio warning zone when drawing your virtual paddocks.
GPS and the mobile network serve two completely different purposes in the system:
GPS:Determines the animal’s location and works independently of mobile network coverage.
Mobile Network: Enables communication between the collar and your app, allowing you to view animal locations on your phone and update virtual paddock boundaries remotely.
The mobile network is needed for communication between the collar and the app. It allows information to be exchanged, for example when you want to make changes to your virtual paddocks or receive updates about your animals.
Without mobile network coverage, you cannot control the system remotely and will need to be within Bluetooth range of the collars.
Yes, the virtual fence keeps working! The active paddock is stored directly in the collar’s memory. If the mobile network goes down, the collar continues to deliver audio cues and electric pulses at the virtual boundary as normal.
What is affected during a network outage is remote access: you won’t be able to see your animals’ locations in the app or send new paddock updates until the connection is restored.
If there is no mobile coverage in the pasture, you can use Bluetooth. By connecting your phone directly to the collar via Bluetooth, you can adjust settings, modify virtual paddocks and check the collar’s status locally while on site.
The collar’s battery and solar panel are designed to last throughout the entire grazing season. Energy consumption depends on how often animals approach the virtual boundary, as this is when the system transmits the most data.
Throughout the season, the solar panel helps recharge the battery in daylight. If the battery needs a top-up charge, for example after winter storage, this can easily be done via the integrated charging port on the underside of the unit.