Chicken Coop Automation using Arduino

[SO_Chicken]

Hi everyone!

I just joined today, after years of gleaning useful information here. I finally have something to share! My husband is an engineer, and he scienced the heck out of our coop. He use Arduino controls to:

- open and close the coop door at sunrise and sunset
- create a remote control option for the door
- add a daylight simulation for 3 hours a day
- monitor coop temperature
- handle small power failures

It took him a long time, but our coop is plug and play now. We go up whenever we feel like it to bring scraps and collect eggs. We don't have to get up at ugly:30 in the cold winter to open the coop door, or go out in the icy gloaming to close it. It's lovely! Plus, we have cameras on them, so we can watch their shenanigans.

He's written an article on it, and posted the source code on Github. Let me know if you try it! If you have any questions, just ask!

 

[jthornton]

Very interesting article and lots of good information. I chose the Raspberry Pi for my coop automation and have did quite a bit with the Arduino platforms including my first attempt at coop automation. I will study that article more that's for sure as it has lots of good information.

You should put your general location in your profile... never know we might be neighbors.

JT

 

[John Smallberries]

Great stuff!!! The idea of setting up a total coop control board has been in the back of my mind. I've been doing it piecemeal so far. I use a Honeywell light timer to and a pair of 110-volt LED's as "artificial sun" to convert my Run Chicken light-sensor doors to open/close at sunrise/sunset based on my location, not the ambient light level. This has fixed a problem where they were getting confused by a large outdoor light and cloudy days. But - my Run Chicken doors are not reliable. Your solution looks very interesting.