Automatic chicken door with no power and no timer

[jerdyweber]

Hi everyone. I am new here. Just thought I would post my videos of a chicken door I came up with. Give me your thoughts!
Part 1

Part 2

 

[Chicken Egg 17]

. Hi that is really cool I never seen anything like that before how long did it take to put that all together and have u found out how many birds it would take to close it without just waiting to see when it is closed to find all of the chickens on it, if I had a coop big enough I would do that

 

[birds4kids]

To be honest I would have a hard time trusting the reliability of the chickens, the birds not your workmanship. That said you get a lot of credit for the ingenuity and getting it functioning. The multiple roosts to fill up before close, to try and make sure all are in first, the "adjustable bricks" to change counterbalance is all GREAT.

 

[jerdyweber]

From what I've seen I believe it will be more reliable then anything with timers or power. Simple in design and nothing to go wrong. The birds seem to be very consistent in there habits. A timer has no idea what the chickens are doing. This functions based on the natural habits of the chickens. From what I have seen from the first couple weeks it will function flawlessly. I will update you all in a few weeks.

 

[jerdyweber]

. Hi that is really cool I never seen anything like that before how long did it take to put that all together and have u found out how many birds it would take to close it without just waiting to see when it is closed to find all of the chickens on it, if I had a coop big enough I would do that

 

[jerdyweber]

Really did not take that long to tweak. To start I had multiple levels on the moving roost so all the birds would need to be on it. I found that to be a little clumsy so I came up with the 2 stationary roosts and the single moving roost. Seems to be working really well now.

 

[aart]

Have seen a couple of these...pretty slick.
I would be concerned about an animal being able to open the door.

 

[jerdyweber]

Not to worried about anything opening the door. It may be hard for you to see but it is smooth metal and has quite a bit of weight. There are no cracks where a critter would be are able to get any kind of grip to open the door. Valid point though. I was not aware of any other designs like this...do you have any links to them?

 

[aart]

Not to worried about anything opening the door. It may be hard for you to see but it is smooth metal and has quite a bit of weight. There are no cracks where a critter would be are able to get any kind of grip to open the door. Valid point though. I was not aware of any other designs like this...do you have any links to them?

It did look to be metal...and anyone who could figure this out would have covered that ;-)
Just out of curiosity, have you tried to open in from the outside?

The others I saw were probably here on BYC..... but sorry, no, I don't have links.

 

[mcfarnell]

Not to worried about anything opening the door. It may be hard for you to see but it is smooth metal and has quite a bit of weight. There are no cracks where a critter would be are able to get any kind of grip to open the door. Valid point though. I was not aware of any other designs like this...do you have any links to them?

Hi! Love this design. How has it worked for you over the last 8 years?