Protect your Livestock and Other Animals from Predation with Driveway Alarms

Every Year Millions of dollars are lost due to Livestock predation. National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) reported that nearly 220 thousand head of Cattle and calf during 2010 were lost to predation in the United States. This amounted to a loss of $98.5 million to farmers and ranchers. There is also a great emotional lost when beloved pets such as horses and other hobby farm animals are attacked and killed by wild predators. One method that is becoming very popular is repurposing driveway alarms to monitor your fences, or property lines.

You can use your driveway alarm sensors to detect when an animal or person crosses your fence line and wirelessly send a signal to set off a chime within your home, turn on lights, or even sound sirens up to 4 miles away. You can use multiple sensors to surround your entire property and have up to 4 different chime tones to help you determine where the predator has entered your property. There are two types of driveway alarm sensors that would be appropriate to detect if a predator has crossed your fence line. The most commonly available type is an infrared sensor such as the Dakota Alert DCMT2500. This sensor will project out as far as 80 feet and detect if something warmer than the surrounding air crosses in front of it. With this type of sensor you would have to angle it away from your property so as not to go off when your own animal comes too close to your fence. Another suitable type of sensor would be a break-beam sensor such as the Dakota Alert BBA2500. A break-beam sensor is similar to sensors used by garage door openers. It detects if something passes in front of the beams, extending up to 300 feet, if both beams are broken simultaneously, eliminating false alarms from small birds and falling leaves.
In many areas, conservation efforts have brought back animal populations that have previously been on the brink of extinction, however their natural habitats have shrunk and now many people are forced to have to contend with an increase in dangerous predators around their homes and farms. With more protective initiatives such as this, people living in areas with predators do not have to suffer as many losses.
Driveway alarms such as those mentioned in this article can be found here: http://www.absoluteautomation.com/driveway-alarm.html