Using a drone to find and check on livestock

On a big pasture or in the hills, a drone finds animals that would take hours to reach on horseback, and shows whether the troughs have water and the fences are standing. In a Utah State University test, a thermal drone searched an area of brush and timber in about 15 % of the time riders needed (USU Extension, 2025).

What a drone is good for

• Finding missing animals in scrub, gullies and timber, before a gather or after a storm. In the second USU test, the drone covered about 600 acres (240 ha) in under 30 minutes and found a cow and her calf stuck in a canyon.
• Checking water and fences on far pastures without driving out to them.
• Counting a group from above, with the camera pointing down.
• Guiding people on the ground, circling over the animals while riders or people on foot go to them.

Thermal or normal camera

A thermal camera finds warm animals in cover and at first light. In the USU tests it worked best early in the morning and in the cold; by late morning, in the heat, a rock at 98 °F (37 °C) was hard to tell from a cow at 101 °F (38 °C). In the cold, cattle moved less, and movement was what most often gave them away. For open pasture in daylight, a normal camera is enough. Thermal or normal camera?

How to search

• Parallel lines with the camera pointing down over big open areas; an expanding square from where the animals were last seen. Search patterns.
• Fly along creeks, gullies and the edges of timber, where animals look for water and shade.
• Count batteries. In the USU tests a battery lasted about 25 minutes, and about 15 below freezing; ten batteries gave around four hours of flight for a gather of seven to eight hours.
• Before taking off, agree on a map with the people on the ground, with the likely spots marked.
• Stay high over the animals unless you mean to move them: a drone flying low makes them move.
• Keep the drone in sight. In the hills, a pilot plus an observer is the safe minimum. In the US, flying for a farm or ranch is not recreational: it needs the Part 107 certificate.

Does Animal Drone Rescue AI work with livestock?

Its AI flags cows, sheep and horses as well as dogs and cats, each with its place on the map. It was trained and tested for dogs, so with livestock take it as help to go through the video, not as a head count. It is free, and it works with the footage of any drone.

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Reviewed on October 23, 2026.