A North Yorkshire farm has installed the latest IP video technology to enable everyone to see all the new arrivals of lambs this spring. The live feed has proved to be a real hit and in two weeks alone has attracted some 16,000 online visitors.
Mainsgill Farm in Richmond has fitted an AXIS P5534 PTZ dome network camera to overlook the barn and the pens in which the sheep are giving birth, in order to allow visitors to the farm and its website the unique opportunity to see the lambs being born.
The high definition camera provides a constant live stream of events from inside the barn, showing all the new additions to the flock and giving viewers the chance to watch the lambs being fed. ‘Lambing Live', as it has been nicknamed, is not only an educational tool for schools and children, but it also makes fascinating viewing for adults.
As well as the latest Axis cameras, the internet video feed uses ‘Streamdays', an open platform hosting solution for converting an IP camera into a streaming webcam, from NW Systems Group.
Frank Crouwell, managing director at NW Systems Group said: “This was a great little project for us. The live video stream clearly provides the obvious ‘cute' factor but it also serves as a very good educational tool for adults as well as children.
“As an Axis Gold Partner, we have worked with Axis for 10 years and have always found its cameras to extremely reliable and durable. We used an AXIS P5534 PTZ camera for this application as the HD 720p high quality footage allows activity in the barn to be clearly seen in real time. The 360 degree rotation means the camera is easily able to view the whole barn and an 18x optical zoom enables close-up viewing without losing image quality.
“For this installation, we also made use of the camera's audio in/output function meaning that visitors watching the live web feed could not only see what was happening in the lambing barn but also hear it as well – adding to the overall experience.
“We currently host nearly 300 of these sorts of live web feeds, especially on our current Streamdays2 platform which is able to stream full frame rate footage. The Streamdays platform is extremely popular with the website attracting 3 million unique visitors every year. The web feeds are mainly used by our customers as a way to drive traffic to their websites and increase visitor dwell time. They provide unique and fun web content that can easily be shared across social media channels.”
Andrew Henshaw, owner of Mainsgill Farm added: “The Streamdays installation has helped all aspects of our business grow and expand both in terms of hits to the website and visitors to our farm shop and team room. We have been astounded by its popularity.
“Due to our location, many of our customers can only visit us when travelling across the country to Scotland. The live internet camera feed really allows our customers to feel involved in the lambing from the comfort of their own home.
“The image quality from the camera is excellent, vibrant and just like you are watching it in person. The zoom and positioning of the camera allows us to get a wide scope of our nursery and the movement of the camera can catch everything that is going on with the lambs.”
Atul Rajput, regional director, northern Europe at Axis Communications concluded: “This project really shows that the potential applications of network video extend far beyond that of simply security. The live feed has proved to be a real hit and in the last two weeks alone has attracted some 16,000 online visitors – it's is great way to bring nature direct to people's doors.
“The network camera can easily be re-located and reinstalled by the farm staff themselves so it can be used all year round. Even though, it's currently watching the spring lamb nursery, it's previously been used by the farm to monitor goats, llamas and even two camels, Doris and Delilah!”