About ClucksNet

LIVE CHICKEN CAM · A VILLAGE OUTSIDE YORK · NORTH YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND · 24/7

ClucksNet is a free, ad-free, 24/7 live stream of four rescue hens living their best lives on a smallholding in a rural village outside York in North Yorkshire, England. The stream runs around the clock — from sunrise to sunset in the chicken run, and overnight inside the Omlet Eglu Cube.

There are no adverts, no subscriptions, no popups, and no tracking. Just chickens.

🐔 The Flock

The four hens each have distinctive markings that make them identifiable on camera:

Crumpet

Jet black feathers with bold copper and burnt orange streaking on her neck, chest and wings. Upright, elegant posture. Named after a World of Warcraft Warlock character.

Triborg

Striking silver-grey and black laced feathers with iridescent blue-black wings and slate-grey legs. Named after the Mortal Kombat character.

Mishelle

Predominantly white with a distinctive black speckled cap on top of her head. The easiest to spot on camera. Named after a family friend.

Margo Leadbetter

Warm chestnut red all over with cream wing tips and a bright red upright comb. Solid, rounded build. Named after the character from The Good Life.

You may also spot Tessa — a fluffy white Bichon Frisé who considers herself chief supervisor of the run and is absolutely not a hen.

🏠 The Eglu

The hens live in an Omlet Eglu Cube, a well-insulated modular chicken house designed for small flocks. The run is connected to an Omlet automatic door that opens at dawn and closes at dusk based on ambient light levels — no fixed schedule, just nature. The door state, light level and interior temperature are all monitored live via Home Assistant and displayed in the status panel on the live cam page.

⚙️ The Technology

ClucksNet is entirely self-hosted on a homelab in North Yorkshire. The video stream you're watching is served directly from local hardware — no YouTube, no Twitch, no cloud video platform. Native resolution H.264 video is captured by UniFi G5 cameras, served as an HLS stream by mediamtx, and delivered to your browser via Cloudflare.

CAMERASUniFi G5 × 2

ROUTERUDM Pro Max

SWITCHINGUSW-Pro-Max-16-PoE

AGGREGATIONUSW-Aggregation 10GbE

COMPUTE × 2Minisforum MS-01

HYPERVISORProxmox VE

STREAMINGmediamtx HLS

TRANSCODINGFFmpeg

UPSUniFi UPS 2U

AUTOMATIONHome Assistant

CDN / PROXYCloudflare

WEB SERVERApache 2.4

The NORAD-style status panel on the live cam page displays real-time data including exterior and interior temperatures, door state, ambient light level, local weather conditions, flock activity status, wind speed, humidity, and background radiation — all updated every few seconds without page refresh.

☢️ Radiation Monitor

The RADIATION reading in the status panel is live background radiation measured by a GQ GMC-800 Geiger counter connected to Home Assistant via USB. Background radiation in North Yorkshire typically reads between 10 and 50 CPM (counts per minute). Values outside this range will change colour — amber for elevated, red for high. If it ever goes red, something interesting has happened in North Yorkshire.

CURRENT READING IS LIVE · NORMAL BACKGROUND: 10–50 CPM · LAST UPDATE: REAL-TIME

☀️ Solar & Battery Power — Coming May 2026

In May 2026 the homelab is going green. A south-facing solar array and Tesla Powerwall 3 system with expansion pack will be installed, keeping the cameras, servers, Eglu door and everything else running on clean energy generated on-site.

SOLAR ARRAY3.6 kWp

STORAGE27 kWh

SYSTEMPowerwall 3

Once the system is live, real-time solar output and battery charge level will be added to the status panel on the live cam page, alongside the existing temperature and door data.

📡 Also on YouTube

The cameras also stream simultaneously to YouTube at 1080p for discoverability. The on-site HLS stream (what you see on clucks.net) is higher quality and lower latency than the YouTube embed — native 2688×1512 resolution with approximately 5 seconds of delay versus YouTube's 30 seconds.

You can watch the Eglu Cam on YouTube or the Run Cam on YouTube.