Automatic chicken coop door sideways install#
Automatic chicken coop door sideways portable#

A disadvantage to using a timed evening closing is that you have to constantly reset the time as daylight hours lengthen or shorten throughout the year. If this adjustment is not enough for your situation, most automatic chicken doors have a timer option that lets you program what times you want the door to open and close. Some doors have a mechanism that allows additional adjustment. Opening and closing times can be slightly adjusted by placing the sensor where it gets more sun - so the door opens a little earlier and closes a little later - or more shade - so the door opens a little later and closes a little earlier. A security lamp or back porch light, or even a light shining through the coop window at night, can cause the sensor to think it’s daytime. The sensor must receive light during the day - ideally on a west facing wall (toward the setting sun) - and be in the dark at night. A daylight sensor automatically opens the door at dawn and closes it at dusk. This table lists pophole sizes and overall frame dimensions for the doors mentioned in this review.Īutomatic chicken doors are triggered by either a daylight sensor or a timer.

Automatic chicken coop door sideways portable#

Some of the door manufacturers offer a solar battery charger as an option, which is ideal for off-grid use or for pastured birds in portable housing. You might choose to use a rechargeable battery, or you might opt for a solar charger. Like a wall plug, the battery should be located outside the birds’ living area or up on a small shelf near the ceiling where birds can’t roost on top of it. If you are off grid, or your coop has no electricity and you’re tempted to (unsafely!) run extension cords from your house to your coop, a battery is the better option. This feature allows the same door to be battery operated.

Plug-in doors use an adapter that converts 120-volt AC household current to 12-volt DC current. Protect the cables from curious birds by enclosing them in a wall-mount snap-cover wiring conduit. You’ll need to ensure that the electrical cables are long enough to reach the outlet.

Automatic chicken coop door sideways install#

If you opt for a plug-in model, install the outlet either outside the birds’ living area or at ceiling height to prevent birds from landing on and possibly dislodging the plug. Some automatic chicken doors are designed to be plugged into a standard 120-volt household outlet. The table below lists pophole sizes and overall frame dimensions for the doors mentioned in this review. The overall frame size may not be important for a full-size henhouse, but can be a significant issue for a narrow coop or one with low overhead. Our 11-inch wide popholes work fine for Royal Palm turkeys and Bourbon Red hens, but when our Bourbon tom matured he had to be coaxed into squeezing through the pophole. A smaller opening is suitable for bantam chickens and lighter-breed chickens or ducks, while a larger size is needed for heavier geese and turkeys. A 12-inch wide by 15-inch high pophole is ideal for most chickens, guineas, ducks, and lighter breeds of turkeys and geese. Regarding size, consider both the pophole size and the overall frame size. Once you decide to install an automatic chicken door, some of the things to consider are its size, its source of power, and how it’s triggered to open and close.

Luckily, skillful designers now offer ready-built doors that work right out of the box. Not everyone has the skill, or the time, to tinker.

Some people are handy enough to make their own automatic chicken doors, and you can find all manner of instructions on the internet - some ingenious, some flaky, and some downright dangerous. An automatic chicken door is indispensable if you’re not always there to let your backyard chickens out in the morning and close them in at night to secure them from predators.