Greetings! I've had chickens for a few years and someone convinced me to livestream them

[janiedoe]

Welcome to BYC. I would expect a silkie to sleep in the nesting box. They rarely roost. Maybe @Debbie292d can give you some tips.

 

[Jener8or]

This sounds like a neat project. It looks like you have some good plans for keeping your girls out of the nesting boxes at night.

My chickens don't sleep in the nesting boxes, but sometimes they sleep on top of them. It's not a problem to me, so I just let them. Maybe adding curtains to your nest boxes would make them less appealing to sleep in.

Thanks for joining and welcome to BackYard Chickens!

 

[chrissynemetz]

Hi, and welcome to BYC! We're so glad you decided to join us! Make yourself at home!

 

[Burnt Brass Homestead]

@HenHangout

I know twitch traditionally caters to gamer, but I was researching if it would be worthwhile to create a channel to live stream the animals.

I have seen a few homesteader have channels set up.

Good luck with your setup.

 

[Debbie292d]

Hiya, and welcome to BYC!

Like Janie said above, with ours they sleep on top of the nest boxes mostly, but some of them in them. We tried a roost, but only had one rooster use it, so removed it.

You could try making the nest bedding less comfortable. I put horse bedding pellets in our nest boxes, and they still slept in them, but at least they're easier to clean and keep the eggs cleaner. They also make plastic mats, I've seen, so they don't get anything to lay on. Nothing says they need to have it all cushy in there.

As for an idea for automated doors, hubby is going to use an old garage door opener to raise/lower four doors, which can be on a timer. He's in the process of building the breeding coop, so there's nothing I can show yet.

 

[Gazergirlstar]

hi i would love to have a setup to live stream my babies on youtube as well , would you mind sharing some good camera brands ?

 

[Debbie292d]

hi i would love to have a setup to live stream my babies on youtube as well , would you mind sharing some good camera brands ?

I doubt you could "live stream" indefinitely with these, but we've been using the Blink cameras for nearly a decade. Amazon is where we get them. We've got about 8 or so. A couple in the coops, but we have the motion off on those or the chickens would set them off constantly. Mostly those are just for me to check in, or check the temp as they also have thermometers on them. They give alerts on my phone. There's a setting for how long to record. I checked one of my older ones, and it's up to a minute.

The outside ones say they don't need protection, but we nail metal coffee cans to the trees where we want one and set it inside there a bit.

This is from a few years ago. Our young barn cat after a skunk near our growout pen. We've gotten dozens of great deer videos too as well as a few fox and other varmints.