The most obvious use of CCTV on a farm is to provide security. Farms usually cover a large area, for CCTV to be effective it needs to capture detail and this means zooming in on smaller areas. A camera with a wide angle lens will capture the whole of a yard area or large shed enabling you to see general movement but it won't allow details to be recovered from the footage. Incidentally on this point if you've seen films where they zoom in on an image and miraculously detail appears from nowhere we've got some bad news for you. In real life that doesn't happen, in the real world your image just gets more and more unreadable.

Decide where you need to monitor and concentrate on those areas. Entrances to the farm, doorways into sheds, fuel bunkers, chemical stores, workshops, offices and so on. Sometimes 2 cameras working together cover an area, one camera films a person in detail as they enter a doorway, the second one covers their general movement once inside. That way you can identify the person should they do something wrong.

Yes, we are fully aware that sheep rustling doesn't mean the sheep are stealing things themselves! We get a number of calls from people wanting to use CCTV to monitor their livestock. When animals are giving birth it is impractical to have someone there 24 hours a day, but CCTV can be used to monitor them and someone can then keep a watchful eye remotely.

Until recently lots of cameras (you generally need 1 camera per holding pen) meant lots of bulky cables. These days 1 small cat5 cable can handle 4 camera feeds and a pair of video baluns can transmit the signal up to 300 metres. This massively reduces cable bulk and cost.

Generally wide angle cameras whilst not good for capturing high levels of detail can be used to monitor people at work. A farm has many potentially dangerous areas and workers are exposed to danger for much of their working day. Each job is unique down to individual scoops when using a teleporter to load a lorry with grain. So unlike in a factory where jobs are broken down into simple protected tasks the farm worker has to think on their feet and is more at risk.

Add to this the fact that workers are not in one specific place as they would be in a factory, CCTV can be used to provide general monitoring and spot workers in difficulty earlier than waiting until someone happened to walk round to that area. It is also useful for knowing where someone is around the farm when you need to contact them.

Typical CCTV equipment for farms

CCTV cables for farms

We have already mentioned using Cat5 cable and video baluns for wiring. Often distances from cameras to the DVR recorder can be quite long. Our standard video baluns will transmit a signal up to 300 metres along a length of Cat5 cable. It is essential to use pure copper Cat5 cable and not CCA (copper coated aluminium) as this does not work well with video baluns. Quite a lot of CCA Cat5 is marketed and sold as pure copper when it isn't so it's essential to find a good source. We supply external grade pure copper Cat5 which is well suited to farms.

Remember that if you power the cameras locally you can use 1 piece of Cat5 cable to carry the signals from 4 cameras. This reduces wiring costs.

CCTV cameras for farms

The distances involved on a farm tend to be quite large so for this reason you need to be looking at more telephoto lenses. The 2.8-11mm lens is a good all round lens for closer work, general overviews or fitting inside storage sheds. Our 9-22mm lens can capture detail at further distance, up to 15-20 metres. This could also be fitted inside a larger storage shed. Finally our B8 series 6-60mm long range cctv camera is fantastic at capturing high levels of detail at distances of up to 50-60 metres.

For filming individual animal pens one of our fixed lens 3.6mm or 8mm cameras reduces cost and will do the job nicely. Distances are going to be less than other areas on the farm.

As for the style of camera used the normal day / night camera body is most likely to be used because of it's ability to house the larger 9-22mm and 6-60mm lenses. It is also suitable for indoor or outdoor use. Open faced vandal dome cameras are good for closer filming or general overviews. They have a tough metal body and good infra red night time performance, better than a fully covered vandal dome camera.

For cameras covering animal pens either our K-series day / night cameras or small open faced vandal dome cameras are ideal and are suitable for indoor or outdoor use. We wouldn't recommend indoor dome cameras due to the harsh nature of farm outbuildings.

CCTV spider repellant

If ever there was a product ideally suited to a job our spider spray is it. Farms are dusty places and they have more than a few spiders knocking around. Cobwebs wreak havoc with CCTV cameras particularly at night when the infra red light bounces back into the camera off the web. Make sure you spray your cameras with spider spray to reduce cobweb interference (don't spray the camera lens and I/R glass, just the camera body and surrounding area).

Wireless CCTV Cameras on Farms

In a word don't bother. With the distances involved it is very tempting to think of going down the wireless route for your cameras on a farm CCTV system. In theory it's a great idea, simple to install and there are some very well priced wireless cameras on the market which claim to give excellent results. So what is the problem with wireless?

There are several issues. The main one is transmission quality. Unless you spend a lot of money on the equipment and then have it installed professionally you will, likely as not, be very disappointed with the results. Interference, range not as advertised and the actual cameras themselves tend not to be the best available both in terms of electronics and lens options.

The UK is very strict about what equipment can be used licence free, so much so that even on domestic installations people complain. We have lost count of the number of people who have approached us for help after battling with wireless solutions, given up and decided to go back to a wired camera.

Whilst installing wires takes a little while once it's done you have the best transmission medium available.