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March 29, 2024, 08:45:21 AM

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Wildlife cameras, GO

Started by touchingcloth, April 11, 2022, 11:57:05 AM

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touchingcloth

I'm interested in seeing what my chickens get up to in their coop of an evening, and whether they get any prowling sharp-toothed visitors.

Ideally I'd like something:
- £50 max
- Battery powered
- IR rather than visible light for illumination
- Motion triggered

I'm not particularly arsed about how to get the recordings off the device - USB ports, SD cards, it's all good. Something with enough battery power to last a few nights at a time would be best, as the hens live far away from any mains power.

The Guppy

I got a trail camera for my mum to watch hedgehogs. It's been no end of trouble and she's always asking for help with it.

It chews through batteries.
If you use rechargables, they only work for a couple of days (they need to be close to 100% charged to provide enough power).
If the batteries get too low, it corrupts the SD card and you have to format it.
The interface is shit and the clock loses a few minutes every day.
Sometimes the videos have weird strobing and I don't know what's causing it.

It does have good night vision, unlike security cameras like Blink, so a (good) trail cam is probably what you want. And you're probably less of a befuddled old cunt than my mum. Avoid the Apeman brand.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Isn't it quite easy to tell whether predators have been there, from all the feathers and guts strewn about?

touchingcloth

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 11, 2022, 12:57:15 PMIsn't it quite easy to tell whether predators have been there, from all the feathers and guts strewn about?

We lost some chickens the other week when my parents were looking after them. They say they definitely shut and latched the door to their coop in the evening but then when they came down to let them out in the morning the door was open and some of the hens were missing.

One option is a sneaky chicken thief came out, let themselves into the garden and then stole some hens with essentially zero value, and the other is that my parents got hammered, didn't shut the door properly if at all, and a fox or similar got in and took some chickens. A camera would help avoid the uncertainty in future.

I've known chicken keepers have their flocks foxed with no visible sign they were ever there - they tend to get into a hen house, kill them all quickly, and then take the bodies away one at a time. That sort of thing would knock some feathers around the place, but chickens shed the things all the time so it's hard to use feathers as evidence of an attack unless whatever did the attack did it clumsily. There are also other native carnivores like lynxes and mongooses in this part of the world. I'd be surprised if it was one of those things that had taken our hens, but I've always fancied having a camera trap in the garden just out of curiosity more than anything, so the chicken situation just adds an extra justification for indulging in some retail therapy.