How to build a fully automatic chicken coop
Siblify.com has a great post on how he fully
automated his chicken coop so he could leave for a 3 week holiday and
still come back to a happy flock still alive and clucking.
It even handles his two ducks
by giving them their own door at the bottom. Ducks like to stay out
about an hour past dusk which means he had to set their door on a timer.
My favorite feature is the
internet chicken cam, an innovation I've been trying to make happen for
over a year now. This allows him to check up on his birds online, which
I'm sure gives one a good feeling knowing their chickens and ducks are
safely tucked in for the night.
The only thing I would do
different here is replace his clunky, old fashioned waterer with an Avian Aqua Miser. He's got it set up to have the
water flush his system for 2 minutes twice a day, which is acceptable,
but in my opinion an Avian Aqua Miser would be a more simple solution
that would be less prone to fail while providing cleaner water for both
his chickens and ducks.
Edited to add:
After years of research, Mark eventually settled on this automatic chicken door.
You can see
a summary of the best
chicken door alternatives and why he chose this version here.
If you're planning on
automating your coop, don't forget to pick up one of our chicken waterers. They never spill or
fill with poop, and if done right, can only need filling every few days
or weeks!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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I found this warning and thought it might be relevant to those out there using a VSB opener for the first time.
I'm sure it could be modified to include some sort of battery checker, or perhaps a regement of battery replacement is in order every 3 months or whatever?
I would be tempted to add a small solar cell to keep the battery charged or just run some electricity out to it and get the right size power adapter.
Image credit goes to ChapelHillFiddler for sharing this information.
The batteries should last several years or up 4 year with the lightweight doors. Short battery life is normally due to an installation problem. With no top clearance the door will jam in the open position and run against the motor overload sensor which will periodically power the motor all day until it is time to close the door again. In it's correct installation the motor will switch off and not operate until night fall.
Another indication of an installation problem is that the vsb should be fail safe. When the batteries run low there will be enough power to shut the door but not open it again teh next day.