Animal welfare: Drones help lower sheep stress levels, study finds

A new method of herding sheep is seeing promising results for sheep welfare, research shows. Watch it in action.

Sheep welfare is improved when using drones for shepherding by lowering their stress levels, research shows.

Sheep heart rates are lower when drones are used, compared to driving methods using dogs or motorbikes, which suggests a lower level of stress, a recent study from UNSW Canberra found.

“Shepherding is an essential part of farming, and it is a way of guiding sheep to go where the farmer needs them to go,” visiting Military Fellow at UNSW Canberra and one of the lead researchers on the study Squadron Leader Kate Yaxley said.

“As sheep are cognitive living beings, it is our social and ethical responsibility to consider their welfare if we’re going to interact with them.”

UNSW Canberra senior lecturer and researcher Keith Joiner said the group originally looked at the technology to make it easier for farmers to check their sheep more often and to reduce quad bike deaths and injuries.

“At first we were looking more from the farmer’s perspective. A lot of farmers are older and getting out to see the sheep can be difficult,” Dr Joiner said.

Dr Joiner said reducing stress levels of sheep was “better for the ag industry and better for the sheep” and said the drones can be used as a form of non-invasive surveillance which is useful to make sure they’re not running out of water, being harassed by predators or experiencing lambing difficulties.

He said further work was needed to develop an application that uses artificial intelligence to familiarise the drone with a particular farm layout that can be programmed with skills to assist farmers.

A collaboration between Charles Sturt University and UNSW will involve field trials of drone usage with larger numbers of sheep and is set to take place this month.

Charles Sturt University professor of livestock systems Bruce Allworth said, “if it can be shown that drones are less stressful, and they can successfully do it, it will be another tool producers can use”.

“We’re hoping to put GPS and heart rate monitors on the animals so we can have a look at their heart rate and their responses. We’ll be videoing everything with another drone to looking at animal responses,” Prof Allworth said.