Get in behind: drone musters sheep

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep and a drone is off to find them.

It seems if nursery rhymes were changed to take in account the advances of the 21st century, this is how Bo Peep’s would go.

Technology has moved forward the way New Zealander’s farmed, but who ever thought a robot would muster sheep.

Federated Farmers Otago provincial president Stephen Korteweg said he had not heard of many farmers using drones yet but there was a buzz around the idea in the sheep farming community.

‘‘They can see a lot of merit,’’ Korteweg said. ‘‘It doesn’t get drunk and not turn up (to work),’’ he said.

He believed it would be a tool embraced by the next generation of farmers.

‘‘It would be a silly idea not to (use them),’’ he said.

Alexandra farmer Brett Sanders has been using a drone to check and muster a herd of 2000 ewes, reducing manpower hours, for the past 18 months on Mt Campbell Station.

The drone once alerted him to a ram stuck in a fence, which he then went and rescued.

‘‘We’ve got 29,000 acres and there’s only two of us. ‘‘It’s a very useful tool for the farm.’’ He usually sends the drone out to get the sheep moving during muster by using a horn and a siren and then meets the moving mob.

‘‘I don’t have to get off (the motorbike or tractor) and walk all the gullies.’’

His interest in drones started after he bought one second-hand from a child in Cromwell. Since then he has imported and added different frames, motors and other parts to his drone.

‘‘I turned the wife’s pantry into a drone-building facility. I’m not sure she’s too happy about that.’’

‘‘It’s just an added tool I use for certain things. There is huge potential,’’ he said.

He was allowed to use the drone, under Civil Aviation rules, at 400 feet and within visual line of site.