automatic chicken door

Actually, I only ordered that little motor sitting above the door, from a company called Aartech here in Canada. I paid 100. bucks for it and the rest, I designed and built myself from scrap stuff laying around our property. The timer, you can buy anywhere.  You can probably get it way cheaper down there because we Canadians get totally ripped off on everything we buy up here.

A light senser wouldn't work up here because this is the land of the midnight sun. My chickens would be up til one in the morning, LOL! I might be herding them in every night as it is in summer.

Ya, I don't know. I guess I'll find out this summer. At 3 in the morning here in the Yukon it just looks like dusk. No darkness. The sun doesn't disapear til midnight but its still really light out then about 4 or 5 the sun is up again. Hard to get used to when I first moved up here but I like it. You don't really notice the short days in winter cause its cold and miserable anyway and you're indoors.

Ya, theres lots of ways to make an automatic door. I googled some videos on chicken doors and boy did I laugh at some of the homemade sophisticated ones. some were pretty cool but complicated. I don't think it can get much simpler than mine but i did investigate solar power. I didn't really want an extension cord going to the chicken house but oh well, no big deal. Doesn't use much power to open and close a door each day. I've got solar lights hanging in there. they're kinda neat but they don't turn on or off by themselves. Battery may not last that long if I forget to turn them off. You can check out the pic of my lights in my profile pics.