RPi Coop Camera

[jthornton]

Very cool JT! Do the hens know they have a peeping Tom?

Well it's a peeping John really lol... yea when I had the egg box camera sitting on a block of wood they would reach back and tip it over so it faced down.

JT

 

[Chickassan]

Cute! They wanted a little privacy. I'm waiting to see how your setup handles temperature and humidity fluctuations. Little ip cam crapped out in the henhouse here when we got brutal cold. Thought it might be the battery pack but it looks like it killed the sensor, it was a cheapo lesson learned.

Well it's a peeping John really lol... yea when I had the egg box camera sitting on a block of wood they would reach back and tip it over so it faced down.

JT

 

[jthornton]

Cute! They wanted a little privacy. I'm waiting to see how your setup handles temperature and humidity fluctuations. Little ip cam crapped out in the henhouse here when we got brutal cold. Thought it might be the battery pack but it looks like it killed the sensor, it was a cheapo lesson learned.

All of my IP cameras and the Raspberry Pi 3 and the USB egg box camera has been down to 1°F with no problems.

JT

 

[leslielbk]

JT, I've got something taking my hens. I'm on 5 acres that's both open field and heavily wooded, but I'm not isolated. I'm in central Florida where anything can happen. It could be a person or predator, I can't tell. There's no sign whatsoever - no poof of feathers, nothing. They're just gone. I'm not savvy about what kind of camera to put up, and I should have one down my drive and one aimed out the back field. Either direction is where the culprit would come from. I can't spend a lot of money, but I am a little techy. Your setup is beyond my ken, though. Can you help recommend something I can install?
So much thanks in advance.

 

[jthornton]

@leslielbk
Do you have wifi and will that signal reach where the chickens are?
Do they free range on the 5 acres?

JT

 

[leslielbk]

they free range less than one acre and the rest of the land is pretty dense where critters can hide. I'd estimate my wifi will reach nearly all the area the chickens go but I've never walked the perimeter to observe the strength of my wifi signal on my phone. I'll do that this morning. I'm really sad about my girl.

 

[jthornton]

The Raspberry Pi Zero W has a camera case and a camera combined with an Anchor battery you can view a small area. Everything is plug and play pretty much. The OS is Motioneyeos so it's configured to connect to the wifi when powered up. It can be setup to detect motion but I've not done that. There are a couple of different cameras that work with that setup.



Can you confine the chickens to a secure area until you figure out what/who is the predator?

JT

 

[leslielbk]

I'm going to try. Again. I've done it before but the 100' of chicken wire I bought was too short and they flew over it. It's hard to enclose the coop and enough space for them to hide... Thanks for the camera recommendation and photos - I'll look at it and buy it or something close. I'll need a wide lense to cover enough area. And I'll get two, one for the front of the house. I need to watch the front too.

 

[jthornton]

@leslielbk
My neighbor got a DVR with 4 cameras from Harbor Freight for less than $300. That might work better for you.

JT

 

[gr4yw0lf]

I've been researching my camera setup and software and came across three softwares that work well. Motion is the underlying software for Motioneye which resides on a Linux Server I have running. Motioneyeos I found to be rather interesting as it is an operating system for the Raspberry Pi with the camera software Motioneye built in. The only drawback it is only works with the Raspberry Pi camera or clone that plugs into the camera port on the RPi. However you can see that Motioneye can work with any IP camera. The screenshot I have a USB camera in the nest box, an AmCrest camera in the run, a HikVision camera watching the chicken yard and a D-Link camera inside the coop. I can monitor all of them in one place with Motioneye.

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JT

You just gave me such a huge head start! I am excited to try getting a setup like this going, and your post here is what made me join the community! Thanks for all the research!