Hi, does anyone have a solar powered chicken coop door? There are lots on the market but a wide variety in price.
Looking forward to having the chooks locked up automatically at night then automatically able to roam free during the day thanks to an automatic door.
Thanks
Hi @SamOC, welcome to the community.
I hadn’t heard of self-closing chicken coup doors until your post.
I suspect one needs chickens which always return to the coup on dusk. Otherwise, recalcitrant hens might be locked out if they don’t return in time.
Wow. There certainly are plenty of them.
Whatever will they invent next?
Yes, however in most situations that is a given. If one should accidentally get left out they will hide in the shrubbery and are very hard to find (that’s the plan Stan). If you have no shrubbery they are vulnerable but then you will have very nervous chooks all day too as they are evolved to hide from all kinds of predators (including daylight operators like raptors) that way.
I haven’t used such a device as we like to feed ours their scraps and ‘talk’ to them and see how they are going so going out to put them to bed and let them out again is preferred.
If you go out about sunset they will be waiting for their daily treat of food scraps at the gate. If you go out 40 minutes later they will be in their shed and on the roost. However the weather can interfere and when it is overcast/raining apparent sunset is earlier and the chooks go to bed sooner - which is no problem. OTOH if the light sensor reads the conditions and shuts the door too soon it is a problem. I think if set up correctly to allow all the flock to go to bed it would probably work well.
I have had chooks taken by a fox in broad daylight so the security of the hen-house door controlled by light (manual or automatic) is not guaranteed.
