The Automatic Chicken Doors

Sunday night was the first time we used the automatic doors. They were set to close at 8:45 p.m. so, about 8:42 with flashlights in hand, we both went out to the big coop first. We waited . . and nothing happened. Vince opened the little box and the clock on the timer was a couple of minutes slow so we waited and the door went down . . right on schedule. The chickens were all in the coop and they were a bit nervous when the door started going down. The made some noises but they stayed inside. I was kinda afraid they’d all go running out but I guess they probably wouldn’t go anywhere near the thing making the noise.

Then we went over to Coop #2. It’s pretty dark on that side of the house. We got there . . the door was down and all the chickens were outside! They could see the mechanism on the door and they were too scared to go inside. Vince had to open the box, manually raise the door, I went around and chased all the chickens inside, and he lowered the door.

Yesterday morning, the doors were set to open at 7:15 a.m. We both stood at the window . . waiting for chickens to appear outside and . . they did. It worked and they didn’t seem too bothered by it.

Last night, about 8:50 p.m., we went out to check. Both doors were down and all the chickens were inside. Success!

Vince said “We’re not going out there every night to check on them, right?” I told him . . for a few nights but not always. I wish we had a camera on it and I could see it from my phone to be sure the door is down and all the chickens are in but til we get better internet out here, there’s no way we can set something like that up.

I’m so happy with the automatic doors!