From Hobby to Ranch Hand

Thinking about getting a drone for your farm or ranch but intimidated by the technology? Rancher Kari Koss bought one for “fun,” and it quickly became a practical ranch tool. She says drones allow her to check cattle and water from the air, covering ground in minutes that would otherwise take much longer to reach on horseback or by pickup.

"I think the learning curve on flying isn't as bad as people probably would expect, especially because there's so much technology in drones for like auto leveling and stuff. Like you don't have to babysit them as much as people might feel like they have to. They have a lot of safety stops and stuff. They're very hard actually to crash into things. They'll usually stop themselves, you know, unless you're really going for it."

Kari says the biggest shift has been thinking differently about her time.

"As ranchers, everybody should be looking at opportunity costs more. mean, what could I be doing with the time that I'm saving? know, a $400 drone, even at $15 an hour, that's only 20, 30 hours of your time to pay for it."

Hear the full conversation on the Ranch Stewards Podcast. It's available on all major platforms and online at RanchStewards.org/podcast.