Farmer’s video of drone sheep herding goes viral

A video of a farmer using a drone to herd his flock of sheep has gone viral on YouTube.

In the clip (see below), Irish sheep farmer Paul Brennan, from Carlow, uses a quadcopter to herd about 100 sheep from one pasture to another.

Mr Brennan has named his drone “Shep the drone”, and dubbed it “the world’s first drone sheepdog”. 

See also: Drones to have a bigger role in mapping arable crops

The clip, which lasts just 58 seconds, is speeded up and edited to the Benny Hill theme tune.

The video has reached more than 45,000 hits on YouTube. However, it has divided opinion among the farming community.

Commenting below the video on YouTube, Fintan Corrigan said: “Great piloting by farmer to round up his sheep using a drone.”

But a blogger named “ecanruf” raged: “It’s people like you who are contributing to the epidemic of unemployed sheepdogs.”

Despite Mr Brennan’s claim to the world’s first, other farmers have previously posted videos of herding sheep with a drone on YouTube (see below).