Layering Innovation: Rest, Diversity, and Precision Grazing at Kunec Cattle Company

Kunec Cattle Company | Regenerative Alberta Living Lab

Nick Kunec doesn't run Kunec Cattle Company off a fixed recipe. Near La Corey, Alberta, he runs it off what the land and the cattle are telling him, trying things, watching how they respond, and keeping what works so each change builds on the last.

Two goals sit underneath all of it, and he doesn't trade one against the other: get more out of the land, and leave the soil better than he found it. Rest, diversity, bale grazing, and virtual fencing aren't separate programs at Kunec Cattle Company. They are layers, each added in response to a condition or a limit, each one making the next work better.

Rest, the first layer

Everything else is built on rest. Nick's grazing system centres on long rest periods within a total grazing framework. Giving pastures time to fully recover lets plants rebuild root systems, hold living roots longer into the season, and compete more effectively with invasive species.

That focus shifts the goal away from maximizing short-term utilization and toward keeping the pasture functioning over time, a system that holds up as weather and forage swing from year to year. It is the base layer everything after it depends on.

Layering in diversity

With rest established, Nick began adding diversity, using no-till seeding to work in more species, legumes especially. The legumes support forage quality, contribute nitrogen, and help stretch the grazing season, all without tearing up the stand he had been resting.

Over time the diversity does something rest alone can't: it stabilizes the pasture. A broader mix of plants responds differently to grazing pressure, moisture, and heat, so the stand is less at the mercy of any one stress. Nick reads how it's working by watching regrowth, persistence, and how evenly the cattle graze.

A nutrient layer, bale grazing

Winter feeding became the next place to add something. Rather than simply feeding cattle through the cold months, Nick uses bale grazing to put nutrients back where he wants them, with smaller bales in biodegradable net wrap the cattle can eat without manual unwrapping.

The payoff shows up the next season. Like many producers who bale graze, Nick can read where the bales sat from the denser, deeper-green regrowth, a visible map of how nutrients moved through the system. Carbon mapping through the Living Lab adds a second read on the same question: as he adjusts grazing, rest, and bale placement, the maps track how those choices may be shifting soil carbon over time.

The layer that ties it together, virtual fencing

Each of those layers depends on applying the right pressure in the right place at the right time, and that precision is usually limited by labour. Moving physical fence takes time, so in practice rest and density get managed to the fence, not to the land. Virtual fencing is the layer Nick added to remove that limit.

Using Gallagher eShepherd collars, he defines grazing boundaries digitally and schedules moves in advance, adjusting them several times a day if the land calls for it. The collars don't replace his decisions. They let him apply the rest, density, and even-grazing intent he had already been working toward, more precisely and more consistently than a fence line allowed.

Learning from the cattle

As one of the first in his region to run virtual fencing, Nick has paid close attention to how the cattle take to it. They are trained to link an audible cue to the boundary; if they push past the cue, a brief pulse follows, and before long most respond to the sound alone, even as the boundaries move.

He has also found that cattle learn from each other. Animals along the edge reach new forage first and signal the change to the rest, so moves happen smoothly without physical pressure. That social learning lowers stress and keeps compliance high.

Refining the layer in the real world

Nick runs about 300 animals in a single mob, roughly 270 of them collared. The uncollared few stay put by following the herd inside the perimeter fence, which has let him test how the system behaves in practice: how far herd cohesion carries the animals without collars, and how collars can be switched off, adjusted, or reprogrammed for different grazing goals and classes of animal.

Those are the questions that matter for anyone else considering it. They move the conversation past whether the technology works and toward how it fits different herds, landscapes, and management styles.

What the layers add up to

The combined effect shows up in behaviour and in the land. With tighter, more predictable grazing areas, cattle graze more uniformly and are less selective; every blade becomes worth eating, which lifts utilization without costing recovery. Those behaviour changes feed back into the soil, shifting where manure and nutrients land, where biological activity concentrates, and which plants gain ground over time.

That is the two goals meeting in one system: more production from the same acres, and a soil base that keeps improving underneath it.

Sharing what he learns

What makes Nick's experience useful beyond his own fence lines is that he is actively observing, refining, and passing it on. Through field visits, conversations with other producers, and the Living Lab's monitoring, his observations lower the uncertainty for others weighing the same tools, showing where they work well, where they need adjustment, and how they support a system built on rest and recovery.

As more producers look to manage with more precision without adding labour, the lessons from early adopters like Nick give them a practical place to start.

Innovation that keeps layering

Nick is clear that this system won't suit every animal, particularly stock bred for grain-based production; his aim is a profitable herd that thrives on grass and fits the land he manages. And he isn't finished. Rest, diversity, bale grazing, and virtual fencing are the layers so far, each a response to what the land showed him and each a base for whatever he tries next. Carbon mapping ties it together, connecting the decisions he makes to the soil they change, so the next layer can be chosen with a little more certainty than the last.

What Nick Has Learned About Virtual Fencing

• Rest becomes easier to implement when fence moves are not limited by time or labour. Grazing decisions can be based on land readiness rather than schedule.

• Cattle learn quickly. Most animals respond to the audible cue alone once trained, even when boundaries change frequently.

• Herd behaviour matters. Cattle learn from each other. Animals on the edge find new forage first and signal those changes to the rest of the group.

• Uniform grazing improves when boundaries are tight and predictable, reducing selective grazing and supporting more even pasture use.

• Not every animal needs a collar. A small number of uncollared animals will stay with the mob when perimeter fencing and herd cohesion are in place.

• The biggest value is management clarity, not convenience. Virtual fencing helps reveal how timing, stock density, and rest interact, lessons that transfer to any adaptive grazing system.