The Nofence N3 is a third-generation, solar-powered virtual fencing cattle collar and the cornerstone of Nofence’s next-generation precision livestock management platform. Designed in direct response to producer feedback, the N3 evolves beyond basic boundary control by combining animal containment, advanced herd health monitoring, reproductive intelligence, and automated forage management into a single mobile app.
“Virtual fencing was our beginning, and our customers showed us what should come next,” says Nofence CEO Joachim Kähler. “With N3, they can see every animal, manage every acre and make better decisions about their herd and their land, all from one app. This is what precision livestock management means in practice.”
Rugged Hardware Built for the Range
Built on a decade of field experience and behavioral data from more than 20 million grazing days, the N3 delivers an industry-leading 99.7% containment rate.
- Five-Times More Durable: Built for extreme weather and rugged terrain, the N3 is backed by an industry-first 10-year warranty — double the industry standard.
- Low-Profile, Protected Design: Positioned below the neck (the most protected area on the animal) with a low center of gravity to prevent rotation.
- Continuous Solar Charging: High-efficiency solar charging keeps the battery running reliably even in low-light environments like dense tree canopies, deep valleys, and high-latitude winters.
- Improved Strap & Chain Mechanism: A redesigned attachment system keeps the collar secure all season while incorporating a predictable safety release under extreme force if an animal becomes caught.
Triple-Layer Connectivity: True Remote Visibility
A common obstacle for livestock tech in remote regions is dead zones. The N3 overcomes this by integrating three independent connectivity layers that switch seamlessly based on availability:
- IoT Cellular for fast, high-bandwidth communication.
- HerdNet, Nofence’s proprietary collar-to-collar mesh network that relays data between nearby animals.
- Satellite Backup, included in the standard subscription, ensuring visibility anywhere on earth.
“Satellite connectivity changes who Nofence works for,” explains Jeff Glasson, Nofence chief product and technology officer. “Millions of cattle graze in areas where cellular networks do not reach. With triple-layer connectivity, those producers are no longer limited to solutions that require expensive on-ground infrastructure.”
What’s New in the N3 Collar
Every new feature in the N3 was developed to help producers transition from reactive labor to proactive management:
- Calving Detection: Monitors subtle behavioral shifts in the days and hours leading up to birth, sending app alerts so producers can intervene proactively and reduce calving complications.
- Heat Score and Estrus Cycle Overview: Continuous tracking of rumination, activity, and heat scores helps identify cows in heat or flag open cows following natural breeding — tightening calving windows and improving conception rates without continuous pen riding.
- Watch Mode: Allows producers to temporarily switch specific collars into a high-frequency tracking mode (location updates every two minutes, active from 1 hour to 7 days). Ideal for calving watch, sick/injured animals, or planned moves. Collars connected via HerdNet share these rapid updates across the herd.
- Scheduled Herd Moves: Producers can set paddock transitions in the app to execute automatically at a set date and time, eliminating the need to be physically on-site for routine moves.
- Automated Grazing Reports: Automatically logs stocking density, grazing days, herd size, and pasture metrics. This replaces paper logs and provides verifiable records for USDA-NRCS conservation and stewardship initiatives, carbon credits, or value-added marketing programs.
- Future-Proof Software and Automatic Updates: New algorithms, features, and app enhancements are delivered over the air at no additional cost, ensuring the hardware never becomes obsolete.
Built on a Proven Virtual Fencing Foundation
The N3 builds upon the core capabilities that have established Nofence as a global leader in virtual fencing:
- Infrastructure-Free Containment: Draw, edit or expand virtual pastures instantly on a smartphone map — no physical posts or wire required.
- Exclusion Zones: Fence off riparian zones, freshly seeded paddocks, dangerous drop-offs or equipment with a few taps.
- Real-Time Visibility and Safety Alerts: Continuous map view of herd locations, with instant notifications for pasture escapes, abnormal drops in activity (early illness/injury), or complete lack of movement (fallen collar or mortality).
- Automated Pasture Acreage Calculation: Acreage calculates dynamically as paddocks are drawn, simplifying forage budgeting and stocking calculations.
- Training Mode: A guided, step-by-step onboarding protocol that conditions most herds to the audio warnings within seven days.
- Multi-Species Management: Manage cattle, sheep, and goats within the same unified app ecosystem.
Precision for the Pasture and the Herd
“Livestock management tends to be dependent on visual observations — you notice something is wrong when you see it in the field,” says Glasson. “The Nofence platform changes this by monitoring every animal continuously. Producers aren’t short of knowledge; they’re short of time. Nofence gives them the information and time to work differently.”
For producers on the ground, the impact is both ecological and operational.
“With Nofence, I’m able to keep the cattle in smaller pastures and more easily monitor forage and cows so I can do a better job of managing both,” says Tyler Chesshir, a West Texas beef producer grazing 200 Corriente-cross pairs across 15,000 acres. “Managing cattle using the Nofence app has helped me get more out of my acres. I can hold cattle on sidehills where they normally wouldn’t graze and utilize forage that used to go untouched.”
Producers retain full, unhindered ownership of their operational data, accessible at any time through the Nofence mobile application.
