I don't like this. If one or two chickens decides not to go in or worse, is lost to predators during the day this leaves the entire flock at risk. Not that I dislike the way the chinese did this a few hundred years ago, I just would not place my faith in it.I wanted to share my version of an automatically closing and opening chicken coop door that does not require a power outlet. A friend of mine brought up the concept which is what got me started on how to design something similar for my coop. The principal is quite basic and could be accomplished in an easier fashion if I hadn't been limited by the small size of my chicken coop.
As I said, this is a very very rough draft - I needed to finish it before having to go back to work so I didn't keep feeding the rats who figured out how to get into my coop and jump into the chicken feeder at night... I thought about using this just to close the feeder but decided it would be better to protect them from predators as well.
The peanut butter jar screwed down to the weighted side of the lever was the quickest solution I could come up with for adjusting the weight based on the number of chickens roosting. I have enough rocks/weight added to the jar that it takes 3 chickens roosting to close the coop door.
For the pulley system I used parachute cord(any quality non-stretch rope should work) and some cheap pulleys from your favorite local hardware store.
BTW you could combine this so that the lever actuates two limit switches or just one DPDT limit switch. Those stitches operate a motor with spool of string or better yet a linear actuator.
