ChickenGuard Automatic Door Opener

chickens tucked safely away each night, and have access to the yard in the morning - and I don’t Even have to be there. It’s great, it works perfectly. We used an old cookie sheet for the door.

Overall I am am very happy with this door and opener. Its really nice to know if I don't make it home by dark that the girls are safely locked up and I don't worry about them getting noisy in the morning looking to be let out. The lock mechanism works well and its not going to get pushed open, and the door slides smoothly in its tracks. We had a bit of an issue getting it programmed, but once we got it down its worked well.

No regrets, I love it. Easy to program and use right out of the box.

Great product! I don't have to worry about opening their door when i leave for work in the mornings! I leave for work before sun rise, I set the timer and it is so nice to not have to worry about opening it myself.

Convenient. Easy to set up and program. Since my door slides up tracks that are inside a raised coop, I mounted my opener to the outside wall so I don't have to climb in the coop to change batteries. I have the string routed over a couple pulleys to keep the direction change smooth. Red LED light flashes when door is closed. It can easily be seen hundreds of feet away. Down side, nothing I saw on Amazon listed the length of the string. I let string unwind too far and it came out all the way. Its not tied to the motor inside the unit. To get it on, you have to completely disassemble the whole thing which may void warranty. I later read the string is 3 feet long and the manufacturer sells a 5 foot replacement.

The wires that plug the battery case into the circuit board are thin as hairs and held on by small amount of solder. It seems very delicate and easy to break wires. Be careful when changing batteries. Overall, great alternative to having electrical power in coop.

I purchased the Premium Chickenguard controller box only about 4 months ago. The motor can handle 2.2lbs and my aluminum door only weight .8lb, which heavy enough to close the door. I purchased this because the coop about 60 feet away from the house and it runs on the AA Nimh battery. It was expensive, but useful not to deal with open and close the coop every night. I did have trouble calibrate the door to open and close. The procedure is easy, but it tend to stop part way during the calibration process for some reason. The automatic door has been working fine after successful calibrated in the last 4 months. I also added a dual LED flasher light with battery operated 10 days ago for easy to see at night from distant when the door closed and deter predator away. It's also helpful when on vacation because I can put a wireless camera point at the coop and check through the phone. For those who on vacation or come home late, my recommendation 1) the automatic open/close door 2) automatic feeder 3) roll egg nest box 4) horizontal water system

I was a little squeamish about ordering the ChickenGuard door opener initially because of the price ($230 on Amazon). We ordered the ASTx Extreme model early in our coop build because it advertised the ability to lift heavier doors than the standard model, giving me options when it came to design. I have to say, the peace of mind it gives us has taken any doubt out of our minds about it being worth every penny. When we first moved our hens to the new coop, we wanted them to stay indoors for about a week to get used to where home was and know that's where they were supposed to go to sleep, So, for that week I put the opener in the manual mode so it would stay closed. Once we were comfortable letting the girls out in the run, I set it to work on the light sensor, so it opens and closes based on daylight instead of the clock, thus automatically adjusting times as we get closer to fall and winter. Now, when I have to go to work well ahead of daylight, I know the girls will be let out at the proper time, and when I get home late, know they will be snug and secured indoors. It will work just fine on the timer mode if you desire to set a specific time for opening and closing, or full manual if you still want to be there to let them in and out.
I was going to use a thin metal door, but decided against it because of cold conduction in our sub zero temps in the winter. Instead I used 1/4" plywood, and the ASTx Extreme has no trouble lifting it as needed. Overall we highly recommend this item to anyone interested in the convenience of an automatic door for their coop.

Update: 4/5/2019 Went to check on the chickens tonight and saw the door was only 2/3 shut, and a message on the screen said "clear door jam". Long story short, after much work and checking it turns out the tiny transmission apparently stripped a gear and the whole unit is Kaput. I have sent a message to the ChickenGuard company since we are still within our three year warranty period. I will update again once I find out how well customer service takes care of us.

I use this to open the enclosure to my hen house so it is fully exposed to the elements. I think I am going to have to construct a roof over it to protect the wooden side rails, other than that I absolutely love this thing. It works brilliantly and puts me at ease if I forget to close the hens in and wake up at three in the morning in a panic. Hope it doesn't fail. So far so great.

Feb 8 2018 Update: Absolutely love this thing. The birds are trained to it and are inside before the door shuts. One hen learned the hard way and got shut out until I rescued her and now she is the first one in. Batteries seem to last forever. Excellent product, highly recommended.

What really sets the ChickenGuard apart is its light sensing capability. No more birds getting locked out because you forgot to set the timer. Simply take the measurement after all the birds are away and it will close at that light level.

I really love the convenience of mine though I find that the batteries must be replaced once in the Summer and 2-3 times in the winter. I do have the ASTx Extreme model with the bigger motor so some of the battery issues may be attributed to that.

Once it gets cold the screen is quite sluggish in response but over 32 degrees Fahrenheit it works like a charm.

In the fall the string on mine broke, nearly killing one of my ducks. The hassle of manually letting the birds out in the morning was not fun, but the great people at ChickenGuard sent me a new string that was here (Northern Michigan) in less than 4 days. Couldn't be happier with the product and the people behind it!

This ChickenGuard door opener is really wonderfull. Especially in the summer when the chickens are awake long before I get out of my bed. They can go into the run soon after the sun comes up. In the evenening when my birds are roosted the opening to the run closes automaticly. This way my chickens are more safe during the night. I have this ChickenGuard for 8 months now and never had any problems of disfunction.

I only bought the the electronic box and made the closing shelf with an old plastic trencher who had just the right size. The closing shelf drops smoothly between two wooden strips with a recess/groove.

One more thing. We easily go out for a weekend or a holliday because it's no burden for our neighbours to to take care of our flock. They only have to supply fresh water and food once a day. In return the get the eggs. The only problem since we have this opener is, that we have a lot of neighbours who like to babysit my chickens.

P.S. My chicken guard still works great after 4.5 years. Only once a year I need to replace the batteries.

This is the best automatic chicken door opener on the market today. There is a great review by a backyard chicken owner on YouTube that you got to check out! No longer is there a need to wake up early in the morning to let the girls out, or worry about getting home after a night out. It is easy to install and being battery operated, you don't need a plug or power source near the coop. Great design! Best price at www.myfavoritechicken.com, but also available on Amazon, eBay, and Etsy. The manufacturer is also very responsive to inquiries and honor their 2 year warranty on it. I've purchased two of the Extreme models, and they have never failed me, been using them for over 2 years now.

I'm not technically minded at all but had no trouble installing and setting timer etc.There is also a good youtube video. $270.00 was NZD and included shipping England to NZ.1 week door to door!

This is absolutely the best thing I have ever bought for my coop. Before I bought it my coop was often open and vulnerable to predators for far too long during the day, as I often leave for work an hour or two before it gets light in the winter, and sometimes get home well after dark.

It is easy-peasy to install - just four screws to fix it to the wall above the pop hole, and tie the string to your pop hole door - what could be simpler? The door opens and closes quite slowly, so there is no danger of ending up with half a chicken - they have plenty of time to get out of the way if they're in the doorway when it starts to come down!

The programming is simple to understand, and the opening options are extremely flexible:

Manual - push the button to open or close. You can set this as the default option, so that you completely control access in and out of the coop, or you can use it as an override feature (eg if you want to open the coop before the preset time, or close it before dusk, or if you need to close the door during the day to keep a chicken in or out for any reason).

Timer - just what it says - activates at a specific time.

Light levels - the best setting to use - opens and closes when the light reaches a certain level, so the door opens at dawn and closes at dusk. All you need to do is go out for two or three evenings in a row and watch your girls take themselves in to roost. Leave it an extra 5 or 10 minutes (to give a bit of leeway for the odd evening when someone is late going in for whatever reason), and then use the inbuilt sensor to check the light level. It gives you a reading in 'lux', which you then use to set the light level at which the door closes. For the morning setting either go out and check the light levels for a couple of mornings, or simply do a trial and error process by adding about 20 lux to the closing setting. (Eg: if your door closes at 150 lux then set it to open at 170 lux). It may take a few days to get it spot on, but after that you can just forget about it completely (apart from changing the batteries a couple of times a year!).


That flexibility is what I really like about this product - you can mix and match any type of opening and closing settings - I've currently got timer to open and light levels to close, but you can use any combination you want. It is also easy to install the opener quite a distance away from the door. I added a run to the coop, and had to change the position of the opener so that it was at right angles to the door, on the end of the run roof, with two mini pulleys and 5 metres of string running through them.

***** UPDATE**** This long length of string worked for a couple of years, but the angles involved obviously put tension on the string which strained the motor too much. It gave up the ghost a couple of months ago and I had to buy a new one. Totally my fault - when I felt the tension on the string it was the equivalent of pulling up something like a 3 kilo door every day (and my door is a thin bit of plywood - maybe 400g maximum) ! I have installed my new opener under the run roof, and even with the lower light levels I have been able to set it to open and close at dawn and dusk without a problem. I would strongly advise you to site the opener just above the pop door, with the minimum amount of string between door and opener.

One final comment about the company itself - their customer service is excellent. I had a minor problem with the timer a couple of months after I bought it. I phoned them up and they were extremely honest - they'd bought a cheaper batch of timer chips in an attempt to keep costs down, and half of them had turned out to be faulty. They sent me out a replacement opener, which I received within 4 days (and that's from the UK to France), and I replaced it and returned the faulty one to them. Needless to say, they've gone back to their original timer chip supplier, and my new opener works without a problem now.

I would not hesitate to recommend this opener to anyone who wants to be able to let their girls out without getting out of bed at a ridiculous time in the morning, or who wants to be certain they are shut in and safe from predators before they get home in the evening. An excellent buy!