Oh, America, where we can turn a celebration of our workforce into an excuse to live-stream animals in labor. Get it?
Through Labor Day, Animal Planet is live-streaming animal births on the Animal Planet L!ve website. It’s called the (caution: you could be clicking into some graphic lamb-birth) ‘Labor Live Cam‘ direct from the Nebraska State Fair — we’re talking cows, pigs, chickens, maybe even a goat or two. On the site, you can also catch edited highlights, videos of the little things taking their first steps, and interviews with the vets. There’s a little scorecard in the corner where they keep a tally of how many species have arrived since Aug. 22, when the #LaborLive cam started tracking the action. While you do get to watch births, a lot of time it’s just a cow milling about.
The vets predict the due dates and viewers sign up to get email or Facebook alerts when an animal looks ready. For viewers watching Animal Planet on the tube, there are on-screen alerts when an animal goes into labor, so you can tune in on your second screen.
BIRTH ALERT! We’re about to see our very first lamb birth on #LaborLive. Watch the sheep labor in progress now>> http://t.co/PvwP1wWPxN
— AnimalPlanet (@AnimalPlanet) August 29, 2014
While that’s all well and good, I’m starting to feel bad for the guy running the cameras:
Security guard just came in to tell me that there’s a chance of tornadoes and hail, so if we lose picture, you know what it is. #LaborLive
— Ben Semisch (@BSemisch) August 26, 2014
Night 7 of the #LaborLive cams. My birthday is at midnight, someone bring me Ice cream cake.
— Ben Semisch (@BSemisch) August 29, 2014