The Legbar Thread!

[ChicKat]

This touches on something that I have wanted to do for some time. I have frequently though of placing a web camera or some other camera that could display on a monitor near my computer work station. The challenge was to find something that worked well and had some range. My coops are almost 200 feet from my house. Yes, I do have broadband internet and have a router already setup. Getting information on web cams is easy. Getting range information is not. Most assume that your web cam is at the computer or some other room/area close such that many are very range limited.

My thoughts were to indentify which hens were producing and how many eggs. This was both a function of identifying which hens were the most productive as well as identifying which hens needed to be retired. Another issue that I have identified is that over time the quality of eggs that are produced by a given hen can change and not usually for the better. I have on BR hen who has been a reliable egg layer but whose albumen has degraded to the consistency of a little better than water. While the eggs are still nutritious, they are not marketable to the local farm-to-table restaurant.. Just try making a poached egg with a very watery egg white! It took quite a bit of time and effort to find the hen with this issue.

The logical extension into selective breeding for production quantity, egg size, etc. is also valuable.

If any one has some suggestions for this scenario, I would appreciate the information.

Maybe not an answer -- ....I have heard of wiFi boosters and extenders:
http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-N300-Wi-Fi-Range-Extender/dp/B004YAYM06 and http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399953,00.asp -- one of those is up to 100 feet..but I don't think that technologically, we are there quite yet. Technology is really a challenge here. I wanted to get a signal from the satellite to one building here and transmit a quarter mile to another building on the ranch. ha hhhhhaaaa ha haa in my dreams.

Had y'all read this?

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/736895/rfid-tags-used-to-report-which-birds-are-laying
http://www.sunspot.co.uk/Projects/RFID/Chickens_RFID.html

 

[TheTropix]

Wouldn't a game cam do the trick easier and cheaper. Some can be viewed remotely from the comfort of the chair by the fire!

 

[DCchicken]

Wouldn't a game cam do the trick easier and cheaper. Some can be viewed remotely from the comfort of the chair by the fire!

Game cameras have relatively low resolution compared to most web, security, or cell phone cameras and are really large for what they do. The ones that do cost lots of money. The best bang for the buck is the camera in a cheap android phone. Plus the phone would have advanced wireless connectivity and image processors to aid in manipulating the image.

 

[normanack]

I have a game cam that's essentially a camera that you tie to a tree. It uses a motion sensor to trigger the shutter. You unload the memory thingie inside onto your computer to see exactly what ate your most expensive hen.

 

[TheTropix]

I knew there had to be a reason. haha My sister/bro-in-law's game cam had great resolution, but wasn't remotely viewable. great pics even at night.

 

[TheTropix]

I have a game cam that's essentially a camera that you tie to a tree. It uses a motion sensor to trigger the shutter. You unload the memory thingie inside onto your computer to see exactly what ate your most expensive hen.

 

[WHmarans]

Subscribing.

 

[DMRippy]

I have a game cam that's essentially a camera that you tie to a tree. It uses a motion sensor to trigger the shutter. You unload the memory thingie inside onto your computer to see exactly what ate your most expensive hen.

What did?

 

[normanack]

What did?

Nothing yet since last year's Christmas day hawk, whose dinner coined the phrase, "I'm Expensive, Eat Me First" was pre-cam.

 

[Runawaylobster]

Egg production contest typically run from the first day of November to last day of the following October. If you are just tracking the number of eggs in a calendar year you can start on any day you want and go for a year (i.e. January 1st to December 31, or from the first egg in the spring to the same day the following year, from the last egg in the fall to the same day the following year, etc.).

If you are tracking the first year of production. You have to start with the first pullet egg that is laid and stop on that day the following year. The charts above are first year production and started with the first pullet egg which I marked with an 'X'.

Individual egg records are not always possible with flocks. My day's 4H note book has a similar egg chart to what is above, but rather than a slash for days eggs are laid and blanks for day eggs aren't laid, it just has the total number of eggs laid by the flock and then at the end of each month he would divide the total by the number of hen in the flock to get a flock average for each month.

Another alternative to an annual chart for individual egg production is to just do a one month chart. One month charts are very good indicators of which hens have the highest "rate-of-lay" and may be possible for many flock owners that can't put the time into tracking eggs for a full year.

do you keep all your hens separate so you can track them??


never mind I just finished reading the rest of the thread after i posted this LOL!!!
I sit in front of my computer all day, my chickens are my "other world" that gets me away... but i have a hard time knowing who laid what egg LOL!!!