Project Inspiration
My neighbors originally had 16 free range chickens. After just a couple of months, the chicken flock had dropped to 10. The chickens only seemed to disappear when the coop door was left open overnight. Looking for a fun project to take on, I decided to design and create an automated way to keep the chickens safe at night while still allowing them to go outside on daily basis. To do this, I designed a door that checks ambient light levels and opens once it becomes light out for more than 20 minutes, to ensure it is the sun rather than a light of a car passing by. The door closes about an hour after the sun starts to go down to ensure that the chickens have time to get back to the coop.
Door
Door moves slowly to ensure that any chickens in its path will not be harmed during the opening and closing process.
Video playing at 3x speed
Controller Pieces
This was a low budget project so the motor controller, Raspberry Pi 3b+, and custom-made circuits were placed in a low budget but effective enclosure: a plastic bag! Though not aesthetically pleasing, the plastic bag provides enough weather proofing to safeguard the electronics in the coop. The package was fastened to the top of the chicken coop for cleanliness.
Hens prefer to be out of the coop when the sun is up and come back home on their own when the sun sets. The door automatically opens when it detects daylight and closes after the sun goes down. On the exception that Hollubs would like to keep their chickens indoors, there are buttons to manually operate the door.
The door has been in place and protecting the flock since July of 2019.