The problem: One of my hens has developed an unnatural craving for eggs. I haven’t caught her in action and I have no idea which of my gentle girls has gone to the dark side. But I know it’s happening because I’ve frequently been finding one of the nest boxes slimed with egg innards – always the same nest box.

The solution: I’ve installed a camera in the coop directed at that nest box. It runs 24/7 and is recorded and monitored by a Camect hub, which sends an alert every time a chicken enters the nest box. If you want the whole story of how I got from the problem to the solution take a look at my post from several weeks ago “Could Coop Cam Clarify Cannibalism Conundrum? Conceivably!” I’m quite proud of that alliterative title, by the way. I couldn’t quite manage that level of clever alliteration this time around. Is there a word starting with “c” that is a synonym for “system?” If you come up with one, let me know. I’m stumped.

Why Coop Cams Are So Cool

I decided I needed a camera in my coop for a very specific reason—to catch an egg-eating hen in action. But as I was installing the system, I thought of a whole lot of other reasons for keeping a constant eye on the coop with a camera.

For instance, there was the incident I wrote about recently in Farmer-ish; the morning I opened the coop door and found the entire panicked flock piled against the door. Once they had squawklingly escaped into the run through the open door I was confronted with a snarling racoon in the corner of the coop. Had my camera system been in place when that situation happened, I would have gotten an alert the moment the raccoon entered the coop.

Then there was the sad and bizarre situation a few years ago when over the course of one winter I found a dead chicken in my Silkie coop on three different occasions—my loveable little Silkie rooster, Snowball, and two of my favorite hens. In all three cases, they were healthy and happy and then they were dead, with no marks or indications of foul play. The cause of their deaths remains a mystery to this day. A coop cam very likely would have provided some insight.

And then there’s the important underlying fact that I’m a helicopter chicken parent. With a coop cam, I can grab my laptop or my phone and see how everybody’s doing! Anytime! From anywhere!

And, of course, once you’ve got the system set up in your coop, you can add on a couple cameras and keep track of who’s coming up your driveway or knocking on your door.

Collaring a Coop Cannibal with Camect

In addition to a row of standard nest boxes, my coop has two “luxury boxes” and that’s where I’m finding broken eggs. The luxury boxes are so named because they’re extra spacious and many of the hens seem to favor them. Because these boxes are so large, two hens often occupy a single box at the same time. Most of the time, the two hens seem to be happy to share the space and have a companionable, old-fashioned egg-laying party. But there are times when each hen appears to be really peeved that an interloper has invaded her private nest space. It’s possible that the hens are getting into a kerfuffle on those occasions and that eggs are getting broken during the commotion. But lately broken eggs have been occurring a lot—maybe too often to be accidental.

Venus and Daisy the Silver Wyandottes in adjoining luxury boxes

To find out what’s really going on, I’ve set up a camera pointed directly at the luxury boxes. The camera sends what it’s seeing to my Camect hub 24/7. One important feature of the Camect hub: It records video and stores it for later access – a lot of video – up to a terabyte of data. With one camera operating I can probably store a month’s worth of video for later viewing.

Plowing through a month’s worth of video could be an odious task, but here’s another cool Camect feature: It sends me an alert via email every time a hen enters the nest box. So, I only have to review the alerts. While it would be really useful if I could get an alert telling me that Jennifer, for instance, just hopped into the nest box, Camect is not that specific (yet? – It can learn!). The alerts simply tell me that a bird has entered the camera’s field of view. But that’s good enough! Anytime I find a broken egg, I can quickly review the alerts for the time leading up its discovery, see who was in the nest box, and what she was up to!

The hens appear to be totally disinterested in this new thing in the coop, and of course they’re completely unaware that they’re being monitored. It’s only a matter of time before the egg eater strikes and then I’ll know what’s happening.

Setting Up the Camect System

Here’s a fact of life: There are chicken bloggers and there are tech wizards. When it comes to blogging about chickens, I think I manage fairly well. When it comes to tech wizarding, I’m a pretty good chicken blogger.

So, I was quite impressed at how easy and foolproof (make that chicken-blogger proof) setting up this system was. After a little research, I’ve concluded that not all security camera systems are this easy to set up. But I will suggest that if you can build something with Legos you can set up the Camect system. It’s pretty much a matter of snapping a few things together. To paraphrase the instructions from Camect’s website, all you have to do is (1) Plug the Camect unit into your router; (2) Plug the Camect unit into a power outlet; (3) Activate your system; (4) Wait for Camect to find your cameras; (5) You’re up and running!

Because my router is in my house and the coop is in the barn, around 300 feet from the house, and not in wi-fi range, I had to hardwire my connections using ethernet cable and a powered ethernet switch – a bit more complicated and time consuming – but I still managed to set up the whole system in less than a day. Here are my steps with pictures!

1-Acquire the equipment

Here’s the complete list of stuff I used to set up one camera in the coop. All the electronic equipment is linked – clicking on the picture will take you to Amazon or the Camect website. I’m about to go live with my second camera but I’ve not included that camera or its connecting ethernet cable in this list. Obviously, once you’ve got a system up and running, adding additional cameras is easier and less expensive that the initial set-up. The cost for what I’ve listed here is around $750. If your coop is close enough to your house so you can use wi-fi you can subtract the cost of the PoE switch and all that cable that I used and save a couple hundred dollars.

Camect Hub (available from Camect Website)

TP-Link Ethernet (PoE) switch

Amcrest ProHD 1080P Indoor Security Camera

Weather-resistant Ethernet Cable

Cable staples (available at any hardware store)

Random bits of scrap lumber and fasteners to build the camera mount

2-Assemble camera mount and attach the camera.

Here’s the camera mount I built out of random lumber in my random lumber pile. I based my design on the height of the nest boxes and the material I had on hand. The “hat” on top is to keep the chickens from using the camera as a roost. So, of course, they roost on the hat. But that’s fine. And it’s not really a hat—it’s a round box that originally contained a wheel of cheese from a local cheese maker. Like I said, I based the design on what I had on hand.

3-Place camera in position in coop.

Here it is, facing the luxury boxes. Photobomb by Elara Barred Rock.

3-Run cables.

An ethernet cable runs from the camera, out of the coop and across the barn (stapled to roof joists) to the PoE switch. I’ll eventually set up additional cameras in the barn, and they’ll all plug into the PoE. From the PoE, a weatherproof cable runs out of the barn to the router in the house. Fortunately, a fence runs most of the 300 feet between the barn and house, so I’ve fastened the cable directly to the fence with bits of fencing wire. Eventually, I’ll drill through a wall, but for now, the cable enters the house through a window.

4- Connect Camect.

I plugged the power cable into an outlet and plugged one end of a short ethernet cable into the Camect unit and the other end into my router.

5- Connect Camera.

I plugged the PoE into an outlet in the barn. Then I plugged one end the barn ethernet cable into the camera and the other end into the PoE. Finally, I plugged the long ethernet cable going to the house into the PoE and the other end into the router.

PoE

Camect

Router

6-Visit Camect.com/welcome.

Camect provided the next simple steps for activating my hub and camera. And that’s it – I was live!

7 – Sit back and watch Hipster Hen TV.

I get alerts via email and can also watch live streaming video from my phone or computer. I can operate the camera from either device and am able to see the whole coop or look out the door at the run. But mostly I keep the camera trained on the nest boxes – doing surveillance.

A bird alert

The coop

The run

8 – Nab the coop cannibal.

I’m keeping tabs. It’s only a matter of time before I catch the mysterious egg muncher in action. Stay tuned for that post!

To see video pulled from my Camect system of an egg eating incident, take a look at Egg Eating in the Coop - Nabbing the Perp.

Randy's Chicken Blog participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to products available on Amazon.

Publishers and other companies sometimes provide products to me at a reduced cost or free-of-charge in order for me to provide feedback. I try these products and provide an honest opinion on my blog. Rest assured that I’ll always express my thoughts honestly, be they good, bad or indifferent. I’m making this disclosure in accordance with the FTC’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising; Request for Comments—16 CFR Part 255.