Thermal capabilities and other uses

Merdit

Merdit

Active member
Looking at the thermal option these days. They are a good chunk of money in my book. I'd need more than just using them for night hunting to justify the purchase. That being the case, I could see them being useful on the ranch. What can the ATNs, Hogsters, Pulsars, and others do? Can some of you with experience answer a few questions?

What quality/price tag/model of thermal would it take to:

1) Distinguish a yearling calf from a deer at 400 yards? 800? Further? Distinguish a cow from a horse?

2) See the temp difference in a heifer laying chewing it's cud and a heifer that is working on calving? How close would you need to be to observe their behavior?

3) Look at a stack of big square hay bales and see a bale that is 30-50 degrees warmer?

4) Look downhill at a stock tank, and see the water level? What distance would be possible? Could you tell if it was iced over?

I'm sure there could be other ways for thermal to make itself useful. Share some of yours, if you would.

Thanks
 
A friend and I just bought hogsters on the premise that they were the most bang for the buck currently out there to use as both scanners and scopes .
Where we are we get snow storms which invariably leads to calving blizzards . We figure that if the hogsters will enable us to find 3 calves that momma tucked beside a soapweed and walked off from that we otherwise would not have found till daylight and likely dead they just paid for themselves . If you have ever spent time driving patures looking for that lone momma that snuck off to calve and finding her headed back to the herd by herself you will understand both the frustration and the opportunity thermal brings to the table right there.
The rest of your questions are frankly going to be more of a try it and see yourself I can tell a horse from a cow at over 800 with the hogster 35 but have yet to see deer mixed with stock to answer that one . I can id a deer as a deer and nothing else when I am setting on the road and it is out past the pivit point on a sprinkler if that helps .
 
The Hogsters are the best bang for your buck as well as their size is conducive to pull it off the gun and use it as a scanner like you are describing. As FarmDad says, a lot is going to be trying some of these things.

If you don't need a weapon sight, you may want to consider the Phenom. It is a scanner only. However, you are asking a lot about temp differences in an object or objects. The Phenom has a 5th background that no other Bering or other brand has that I have seen and that is called Target-Hot Mode. What it does is it allows a person to see more subtle changes in temp over a target area. The overall image isn't probably as good, but if looking at a specific target you will see more temp changes in a small area. I like to use it for pictures. It is also the best background I have seen for scanning in fog.

Buy whatever you decide from Night Goggles. Once you get it, use in these various ways and more for 7 days and if it doesn't do what you need it to do, send it back.
 
Fairly often you can tell how much is in some type of tank, deer feeder, pig barrel or similar items because the part that is full holds heat/cold better than the empty part, in essence allowing you to "see through" walls. Obviously you don't really see through it, you just see the exterior results of something on the inside.

Thermal is kind of funny. You see a lot of things with it that you think you wouldn't, but sometimes you can't see things that you think you should be able to. Some things on your list I think thermal would do just fine, like telling you if some bales are hotter than others. You could probably tell if some bearings on equipment were hotter than others too. Probably see wires that were too hot. Some things, like the cow calving vs chewing its cud I don't think it would do that. Ice in a stock tank I doubt it would see. I can watch from my front door and see if my daughter is getting her chores done down at the barn. Check and see if coyotes are messing around the goat pens. See if equipment has been run that day from latent heat. Sometimes see animals that you don't see just with normal vision. I know guys who use thermal in daylight hunting bobcats who say they see cats with thermal they never see otherwise even with magnified optics.

A whole lot of using a thermal comes from experience looking at and judging things. Many animals you can tell apart by their behaviors, even if they have similar body styles. Telling deer from cows is pretty easy to me. Cows and pigs tend to be really "hot" looking, much more so than deer or coyotes. The more you use a thermal the better you get at interpreting what the image is showing you. Probably the more you used one around the farm the more uses you would find for it.

For me personally a Hogster R 35 is about the bottom end of where I would buy, standard dealer price on that is $2675 (this is what I use for my dual purpose scanner/backup rifle optic). For another $500 the Super Hogster is a nice step up. Both are small and light, would work great for a scanner or dual purpose. Lots to think about though. Primarily scanning? Mostly shooting? A true dual purpose? What do you want to shoot? How far? Do you want to be able to record? Not just to share hunting videos, but think you might need a reference or proof of something someday? If you are scanning a lot something like a Pulsar Thermion is no good (for handheld). Too bulky and heavy to use as a scanner. Thermions or Trail 2's are great as a full time rifle optic for shooting though (Thermion XQ50 is my full time coyote rifle optic).

Kind of just depends. You covered a lot of ground with your OP, hopefully I didn't ramble too much in my reply.
 
Thanks for the replies. I did cover a lot of ground in the OP, and you guys gave me some good insight.

Right now I would lean towards a true dual purpose shooting/scanning. The Super Hogster would be the current front runner from what I've seen on here and from what you guys are saying. If you can distinguish a cow from a horse at 800 and identifying deer the length of a pivot, it would likely do what I want. Finding baby calves is high on the list.
How far away can it pickup a horse or cow?

My hunting would be for coyotes. No hogs here. How far can it pickup a coyote? Videos look like 300+ is possible for identification and shooting.
 
Both of ours are the 35s not the super hogsters I was put in charge of scope selection and decided the extra features we really didn't care for or about given the extra price . Also the bump up in magnification narrows the field of view by quite a bit . Just before our scopes came in I developed some severe back issues and have only made one stand using mine as a scanner while setting in the pickup . Buddy took him out at 350 with his 6.5 creed when he was getting too close to winding us . I watched him come in from a lot further than that but can't honestly tell you when optically I could say it was a coyote because there wasn't much chance of anything else coming to the call out here .
I can pick up cattle on the far side of a section of ground with it but of course as dots and it helps if they are bunched up .
Note though that our humidity runs low 10 to 30 percent most days and our nights drop into the teens regularly Its my understanding this makes for good detection and id conditions .
hope that helps
Bob
 
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Personally I think the 35 makes a better scanner due to wider FOV. At least for me is does since I already have something with higher magnification and a tighter FOV. But the way I use it ID at a distance is not quite as critical. Once I have an item of interest I am going to the gun with its high magnification optic anyways. For a stand alone unit maybe the Super Hogster would be better since it would have better sensitivity at distance and a higher base mag.

ID with a thermal. Much of it is done by behavior. If it is just a white dot out there at some unknown distance it can be tough. But if it has other things around it so you can judge size, if it moves where you can see how it moves, and get different views of it, that is when many times you say "Oh, that is a ______________" I have not been around many horses with thermal, but to me they should be fairly easy to ID. Maybe unless you had elk around? Cows are generally pretty easy. They are big, boxy, and hot. I can see cows with my Thermion at a mile, sometimes more. Hogster would most times see them 3/4 of a mile. For me ID on smaller less common things is what is tougher. Raccoons, possums, porcupines. The way jackrabbits run they can often be mistaken for a coyote coming in at first glance until they stop.

One thing about thermal that has not been mentioned. When I first got thermal I thought it would be a no brainer finding downed coyotes/pigs. While most times you can see them laying right there, and for sure it does help a lot, it is not a given. A coyote laying down flat is not very tall. It does not take much of a low place, or very tall grass/crops to hide one. You would think finding a coyote in a peanut patch with thermal would be easy. But I have had several fall between the rows of peanuts in a little 8" depression with leafy vegetation on either side, and it took me forever to find them. You have to look up and down the rows, 3-4 rows at a time. Same for a coyote in a cotton patch one night. And once on a 250 lb sow that we drove within 15 feet of her. She had died in thick tumbleweeds as she was going through a depression under a fence. I found her the next day, saw a foot sticking out of the tumbleweeds. Sometimes if it doesn't look like what you think it should and you have some interference things can be tough. This is the main reason I went with the 35 over the Super Hogster. Lower base mag and wider FOV up close really helps finding downed animals, say under 50 yards or so. FOV at a distance is not really a thing for me. FOV when under 100, or 50, or closer is.
 
I will say there is a learning curve when going thermal and the more you look through one the better you can see and identify things . I had mine two weeks before I got my back in shape to do more than set on the porch and look out across the pasture here at the house . It was actually imo time well spent watching the horse, deer, rabbits , prairie dogs , my dogs , ect at various ranges both day and night and seeing how known objects and animals will retain or discard heat I am now at the point i can drive the country and do the same though not well enough to actually put a rifle on a tripod and do any calling . Gladly we are fresh out of used cow right now so " blind " shooting is out too . The point of my ramble i guess is that the more you use one the more you will see and the more sure you will be of just what you are seeing .
 
I have a pulsar trail and a hogster 35.

1- I think telling a deer from a calf would be hard past 400 maybe 500 yards. A horse from a cow maybe a little farther.

2-I dont think you could tell any temp difference if one was calving. Still worth every penny for calving season though. Being able to see one way out there by herself you will know whats going on vs trying to search for them with a spot light.

3-This is a great idea checking bales i never thought of that! I use mine to check grain bins. I run the fans until the roof vents are the same temp as the rest of the bin then I know the grain is cooled.

4- Should be easy to tell the water level in a tank but I dont think you would see ice vs open water.

5- I just used mine to look over the outside of my house. I have heat leaking right through the siding in spots all over so now I need to spend a bunch of money on insulation haha. Its an old farmhouse so i figured it wasn't good but it was very interesting to see right where the bad spots are.
 
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