Count your chickens with streaming webcam technology

Case Study republished courtesy of NetComm Limited

Ecoeggs are free-range – genuine and certified. Resident hens spend the day roaming lush green pastures in search of seeds and insects. Free to move between the range and barn as they please, Ecoegg farm hens live a life far removed from their caged or barn kept cousins.

With increasing public concern about animal welfare and the source of food, Ecoeggs were keen to let customers watch their free roaming hens first-hand from the convenience of their computer, laptop or smart phone. Constant real-time webcams were decided upon, allowing customers and stakeholders to observe the free-range farms at any time, from any location.

Captivaction provided Ecoeggs with a CaptivEYE Live & Interactive Webcam for integration within their website. The system was quickly and easily installed, giving farmers and customers genuine insight into the free-range lives of the chooks, using features including live video streaming and real-time user pan, tilt and zoom control.

As the ChookCams were placed in isolated locations with no nearby connections, NetComm’s CallDirect Series (CDR-790) routers were used to enable a reliable connection over the Telstra network, through which the video stream and remote control functionality is achieved.

Paul Carter, Captivaction Managing Director, required a stand-alone system that could be deployed in remote rural locations, and operate reliably.

“Being a 3G router, NetComm’s CDR-790 is easy to set up and install in virtually any location. The equipment is configured and tested in advance, and because the routers are used for this single purpose only, the bandwidth isn’t shared with others and we’re able to ensure quality of service of our webcams.“

Ecoeggs have received an overwhelmingly positive response since the ChookCam went live. The simple process of providing customers with an online video feed has also opened the door to a variety of interactive marketing opportunities via their website, Facebook and Twitter.

Read the original case study

llustration by Front Design

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Does Kyle answer the ultimate question? No not that one, the chicken and egg one ;-) We'll leave it up to you to decide. But there's no doubt in our minds that he is a sculptor with infinite patience and great taste in materials. He painstakingly selected and glued the perfect range of shell fragments and colours to create a delicate sculpture with plenty of character. Kyle is a Brighton based designer specialising in hand crafted models, set design and art direction. 

Title: Which Came First?
Artist: Kyle Bean

 Image courtesy of the artist.

Campvale farm wins Producer of the Month

Congratulations to our egg producers of the month, husband and wife team, Terry and June Fuller of Campvale. Terry and June, with the help of Roy Murphy, attend to the chook’s every need, seven days a week. And because the chooks are so content, reward the Fullers with a bountiful harvest of free range eggs.

The eggs are routinely collected twice every day and immediately placed into a temperature controlled environment to ensure absolute freshness when delivered to our customers. The hens love their cosy nest boxes and rarely lay on the shed floor or outdoors in the grass, but these areas are also checked. 

Terry makes sure that the hens have just the right amount of fresh feed and water at all times and now that summer is here, it’s important to have sufficient shade outside on the range. In peak summer temperatures, chooks sometimes duck back inside the shed where they can always find fresh food, water, fans and evaporative cooling.

Some days when it is raining heavily the chooks are not allowed to go out side because they tramp mud back into the shed and dirty the eggs. We have tried, without success, to teach them to wipe their feet. You can see Terry and June’s happy hens on Chookcam this summer.

Well done Terry, June and Roy.

Peeling an egg? Just boil and blow

Thanks to Mandy for letting us know about this technique for peeling hard boiled eggs. Maybe you've seen it before, but frankly it blew our minds :-) We have not tried it out yet, anyone else have have any great tips let us know in the comments.

Update on Saturday, November 19, 2011 by ecoeggs

The original video we linked to was removed on YouTube so we have linked a new one.

ChookCam shows off our free range hens

ChookCam has been so popular, everyone loves to see our free range hens running around. Here's a quick sample video from ChookCam taken earlier this year. The quality is a bit rough as it's recorded directly from the webcam, which is connected via mobile broadband due to the farm's isolation. Check out our live ChookCam page, where you can control the camera in real time (not available for iPad and iPhone users, yet).