How LoRa Ear Tags Track Cattle & Sheep Across the Whole Farm
3 June 2026 · 7 min read
The problem with tracking livestock has always been coverage and cost. Mobile (4G) collars need a signal and a SIM per animal — fine near town, useless in a valley, and far too expensive to put on a whole flock. LoRa changes the maths.
What LoRa actually is
LoRaWAN is a long-range, low-power radio network — and crucially, one you own. You put up a few gateways (often solar) and they listen for tiny, infrequent messages from tags kilometres away, through hills and trees, with no mobile signal involved.
- Range: up to ~10 km from a tag to a gateway in open country.
- Power: a tag sips so little that a coin cell lasts months to years.
- Cost: tags are cheap enough to put on every animal, with no per-animal SIM.
- Yours: no carrier, no monthly data — the gateways are your infrastructure.
How a position is worked out
GNSS collars carry their own GPS and report an exact fix. Lighter ear tags don't need GPS — they're located by which gateways hear them and how strongly, giving a paddock-level position that's perfect for 'is this animal where it should be?'.
Tip — A common setup: LoRa ear tags on the whole mob for coverage, GNSS collars on bulls/studs/lead cows for pinpoint location, and 4G collars on anything that travels off-farm.
Flockarewe ingests it all the same way — your ChirpStack gateways forward to one webhook, and every animal lands on a single live paddock map.
Keep your stock in sight
Tag your stock with LoRa ear tags and collars, watch every paddock on one map, and let Shep flag trouble — all from one app.
