Woodhouse Fields in Shrewsbury is a multi-level farming enterprise, which includes around 1500 acres of arable land and nine large poultry sheds for large-scale poultry farming. Corve Poultry Ltd. owner-operator Jonathan Benbow was looking for a means of monitoring his poultry sheds to ensure operational efficiency and bio-security adherence. He approached specialist agricultural security and surveillance installer Agri-CCTV Ltd to help develop a solution.

Agri-CCTV was asked to provide a system that delivered video images from inside each poultry shed, to allow for the animals to be monitored remotely. The main challenge that had to be tackled was the distance between the farm’s two main sites, which are nearly one kilometre apart. “As a result of this distance between the sites, we couldn’t use standard cabling,” said Anstis-Smith founder of Agri-CCTV. “We had to approach the problem from a different perspective. So we worked with Hikvision to develop a Wifi-based solution, which would link-up each shed across the whole site.”

Agri-CCTV installed Hikvision cameras in all nine of Woodhouse Field Farm’s poultry sheds, for the ongoing monitoring of poultry growing, feeding, welfare and to ensure that their strict bio-security standards are adhered to. The cameras selected for these internal monitoring roles were 4MP HD Exir models. 

Hikvision’s Exir cameras have built-in LEDs housed in a separate window to the camera lens, and utilise Hikvision’s patented Exir technology, which allows for better infrared coverage than traditional IR arrays, and eliminates the issue of internal infrared reflection and image bleeding. This makes them ideal for 24-hour monitoring, which is crucial to a poultry farming operation. A further Exir camera was installed in the Farm’s boiler room for the security and monitoring of the machinery and the safety of the room’s lone worker.

Four external cameras monitor the site; these are also Exir models with powerful 80m infrared range, offering the ability to capture clear images with no additional external illumination required. Images from all of the cameras are recorded to a Hikvision 16-channel network video recorder, equipped with an 8Tb hard drive.

In addition to the standard CCTV aspects of the system, Agri-CCTV and Woodhouse Fields Farm are trialling a new Hikvision thermal camera to determine if this relatively new surveillance technology is a good fit for rural and remote applications. 

The advantage of thermal imaging for CCTV applications is that no lighting is required: the camera can pick up heat sources and associated movements at long distances, at night, and in all kinds of weather conditions.  At Woodhouse Fields Farm, the trial will use a single Hikvision DS-2TD4035D-25 dual-function thermal and optical network speed dome camera to judge whether it has the potential to be used in place of a number conventional CCTV cameras.

“I’m extremely happy with the images we get from the Hikvision cameras,” Benbow says. “They’re clear, effective – even though they are transmitted by Wifi – and also very useful for us. I wouldn’t be without the system now.”

The solution installed offers the capacity for the farm to grow its operations, and to extend its CCTV-based monitoring and analysis over the ensuing years. The ability to monitor ongoing activities will allow for operational improvements and efficiencies, which in turn will lead to more cost-effective products for customers. And a better functioning farm operation means better quality food products for the nation’s supermarkets.