Why herding sheep’s a lot less bovver with a Pavlovian hover
A FARMER in Shropshire has become the first person to herd sheep “handsfree” by tricking the animals into following a drone as they are fed nuts.
Wojtek Behnke, 36, has managed to get his 300-strong flock of ewes to follow the device by giving them food while it flies overhead.
Farmers have previously tried programming drones to emit a barking sound, which encourages sheep to walk away from the noise.
But the sheep quickly realised the drone would not hurt them and started to ignore it. Instead, Mr Behnke uses positive reinforcement.
This is the first time a farmer has used this method to tackle the centuries-old conundrum of how to speedily and efficiently herd sheep.
“I was looking on the internet and saw drones were being used to herd sheep, so I thought ‘let’s give it a go’ and it worked,” Mr Behnke told The Daily Telegraph.
He teamed up with Mark Rutter, his sister’s colleague and professor of applied animal behaviour at Harper Adams University in Shropshire, who has pioneered the positive reinforcement method.
They hatched a plan to train the ewes to associate the drone with food. Mr Behnke set up a tube going into a trough in the sheep’s field and hid behind a hedge, secretly dropping food down it while flying the drone overhead.
Eventually, the sheep started coming to the trough when they heard the drone, even if there was no food. This then lead to them following the drone.
The method harks back to the work of Ivan Pavlov, the Russian physiologist who used positive reinforcement to train dogs to associate particular noises with food, leading them to salivate.
Prof Rutter said: “Farmers traditionally get sheep to move by putting a dog behind them or getting sheep nuts (concentrated feed in a bucket). The sheep learn it’s a nice tasty treat and will follow you. But if they’re spread over a large area [sheep] are probably not going to hear you shaking the nuts.
“The drone’s barking mode quickly became ineffective. Sheep are prey species and responsive to possible threats. They are described as stoic and don’t want to give away that they’re injured because if predators think they can’t run away as quickly, they’ll target that sheep.
“They run away from the drone initially then quickly realise it’s not a threat and ignore it. But the more positive reinforcement is used, the more effective it becomes. It’s certainly time-saving and would help improve the welfare of millions of sheep.”
Prof Rutter, who grew up near the Yorkshire Dales, became fascinated with the use of technology in farming from a young age.