Harness the power of cute with a pet camera live stream

If you love your furry, scaly or feathered friend, there are several people online who will love them just as much as you do! Starting a pet camera live stream is a great way to make someone’s day brighter, connect with animal lovers like yourself, and motivate people to support your channel.

You don’t have to be a zoo, animal sanctuary or adoption center to get people to tune in. People’s pets have built celeb-worthy followings just by being their adorable selves. Famous animal accounts like Juniper Wildlife Refuge, which features the internet’s favorite fox, and Smoothie the Cat have millions of followers.

Why start a live stream?

When we think of famous pets, we usually think of carefully curated social media accounts and video clips of adorable antics. Live streaming brings viewers even closer to your pets, allowing them to have your live stream on in the background as they go about their daily tasks. 

More importantly, once you’ve set everything up, streaming becomes a relatively simple and inexpensive pastime. Once you’ve invested in your cameras and mics, you can just switch on your live stream and even earn a bit of revenue from streaming platforms, donations, and selling your own merch. 

Setting up your pet camera live stream

The key to a great pet live stream is making the set up work with your pet’s idiosyncrasies and needs, not the other way around. Think about your pet’s unique habits and quirks, and the places they like to spend the most time. 

Here’s some ideas for setting up a pet camera for your live stream:

• Place a camera at a high vantage point to capture as large an area as possible.
• Add a camera where your pets like to sleep or snuggle with each other.
• Setting up a camera near a heat lamp is a great way to catch cats in their favorite spots, and chicks and ducklings as they hatch! 
• Film areas for play with toys and other things for your pets to interact with.
• A good hamster enclosure is flat and has several areas for enrichment – so add a birdseye view to capture all their movements.
• If there’s a lack of natural light, consider adding a few lamps. CCTV cameras will also have infrared settings. 

The more cameras you add, the better the chances are of catching your pet onscreen. However, you won’t need to worry about adding an expensive microphone. Most viewers will be happy to just watch a silent live stream. 

Once you’ve positioned your cameras, the next step is to compile all your sources in your chosen streaming software to create a layout. (Most streamers prefer OBS Studio because it’s open source and relatively easy to use, but there are other paid options, like Ecamm Live.)

Here’s how to create a pet live stream layout on OBS:

1. Click the + symbol in your Sources panel.
2. Click “Video Capture Device”. 
3. Select your camera name from the Device dropdown list. 
4. Repeat steps 1-3 to add more cameras to your layout. 
5. Reposition and resize each camera source by dragging the borders around your screen in OBS. You can also manually adjust the width and height of your video capture.
6. Add webcam frames to visually separate each camera source. 
7. Add more overlays to share messages, remind people you’re going live, encourage donation, and share fun details like your local weather. 

Promote your pet live stream

Post the link to your live stream on your social media accounts so your followers, friends and family know where to watch your fur baby.  If you’re creating a Twitch pet live stream, you’ll want to put together a bio for your pet, create a banner for your channel, and put together a streaming schedule. 

Add your pet as a cameo on your regular stream

If you already have a live stream channel, another great idea is to add your pet camera to your regular live stream layout. Not only does this add a dose of cuteness to your regularly scheduled broadcast, but it also provides a great topic of conversation to shift to whenever you run out of things to say. 

You can also use your pet cam to encourage donations and incentivize your viewers to help you reach stretch goals. Some streamers will set their automatic feeders to give a treat once a certain amount of donations is made.

If you’re looking for overlays for your pet live stream, look no further! Here at overlays.uno, we have a wide range of overlays that work seamlessly with your streaming software. Sign up today and start using any of them for free. You can also join our DIscord to pick up more tips and tricks for creating your very first pet camera live stream.