Chicken coop door

john in la · Oct 24, 2020

Many on this site have chickens.
Opening and closing the door gets old real fast.

So school me on automatic door opener/closer
Do you have one.
If so what brand.
How do you like it.

RalphWD45 · Oct 25, 2020

My chicken house sits in the middle of a fenced chicken yard, and the door is open except at night. I don't have need for an opener. I only go out there twice a day, unless I am stocking bagged feed, in the feed room. I loose a few hens a year, to Raptors, but they all run in the open door, if a hawk, or eagle is after them, It does not pay , to be a slow chicken!

Jegs · Oct 25, 2020

chickendoors.com

We've had this one for about 6 or 7 years now, zero complaints. Replaced the battery once so far, it has a light sensor and is fully automatic, this door works, opens door at 1st light, closes at dusk.

It even opens back up for about 30 seconds after close at night just to let stragglers in, when and if this one quits we'll get another one without a 2nd thought.

Two Dogs · Oct 25, 2020

I made my own using a few pulleys, small cable and a two outlet garden waterer timer. At night a plastic gallon jug slowly fills and pulls the gate closed to be latched by a garden gate latch. The water slowly drains out of the plastic jug through a tiny hole in the bottom. In the morning another jug fills and releases the gate latch and the gate is pulled open by a screen door spring. This jug then slowly drains and it's ready for the next cycle. I had to throttle down the water to just a trickle filling the jugs because the shortest time the timer can be set is one minute. It works like a charm and I have the cost of the timer (about $35) and a few hours of spare time invested. I hope this helps. TDF

RobCons · Oct 25, 2020

I've put a couple of the chickendoor.com ones in. They work great and install easily. You can get them for 110 volts or solar and with a photo sensor. Install it and forget it.

Steve A W · Oct 25, 2020

Here's a video of one way to do it.
chicken coop door

coshoo · Oct 25, 2020

My BIL, who is kind of a genius, made an opener with a bunch of relays, sensors and other electronic wizardry. He had it on a duck house, and a couple minutes before it closed the door, it would play "When the Saints Go Marching In." The idea was that the quackers would learn to march into the house when the song played, then be safely tucked up for the night. Door would automatically open in the morning. He knew there would be a learning curve, so he went out when he heard the music and manually put the ducks in the house. The learning curve turned out to be infinite, apparently, because the ducks never did figure it out. His waterer was a length of 4" PVC with the top cut out, and open on one end. It was mounted such that a slow stream of water would gradually fill it, and after about 3 hours would be filled enough the it would go over center and dump out the open end, and routed out to a buried bathtub, which was their pond. When they finally started laying (which was the goal), they only averaged 1 egg per day out of 6 ducks. So down the road they went.

Fred47M · Oct 25, 2020

I wonder if he fed them any layer feed or something with protein in it. I do half corn and half layer. I only have 5 hens left, 5 drakes and threw away at least 100 eggs this year. Pekins and black swedish. If I holler out the door "Go to bed duckies" they usually start waddling their way in by the time I get my boots on.

GordoSD · Oct 25, 2020

Down the road they went. marching to "When the Saints go Marching In. LOL

Chicken coop door

john in la

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RalphWD45

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Jegs

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Two Dogs

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RobCons

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Steve A W

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coshoo

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Fred47M

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GordoSD

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