My urban coop [Chickens moved in! Updates on page 6]

[Hawkeye95]

We are in the same temperature zone- and we rarely get snow, either. Just lots of cold and ice mostly. Anyway, I think your coop will be fine. I can't see them being locked up for days on end in our zone- I bet you are one zone colder than us, but still. The run looks plenty big enough! If you really wanted more space, you could keep the design exactly as is, and just make the width 4 feet instead of 3 feet. It would add a bit more room, without sacrificing space in your yard. I think this will be a really fun coop! Be sure to post pictures as you build!

 

[rpchris]

I'm making slow, steady progress on the coop and run. The full build is can be seen in the link in my signature.

The coop is ready to be disassembled and moved outside as soon as it stops raining.

I've started finishing out the windows, but it will probably be another couple of week before all 4 are completed.

The first section of the run is also ready to go outside, but with the chicks at 3 weeks of age they were outgrowing their cardboard box brooder.

So I converted this section of run into a stage 2 brooder for now.

The chicks love all the space. They are racing back and forth and fluttering around like crazy.

 

[allieloveschickens]

looks good!

 

[JellyBeanCee]

I've really enjoyed seeing pics of your coop and the chicks. It is really a beautiful coop. I'm about to start working on mine and my chicks should be in on 9/29...I hope.

 

[Springthing]

rpchris-

That locking door is genius!


I'm very much extremely super interested in the automatic door function itself. I know enough about the door motors to know you can set them up with a timer to set but you mentioned yours was computerized so you can have the door do the one hour post sunrise/sunset timing down.

I'm hoping you can share a little more of how you did that and how the system works. It seems to be a lot better than the regular timer that you'd have to change every month or so.


The coop and run look awesome and look like it will fit the house perfectly. Congrats!

 

[OvertheHenHouse]

This looks GREAT! Congrats on a great design and build. Can't wait to see it installed!

 

[rpchris]

Quote:
I've seen digital timers that do this too. You set the date, time and your location in the digital timer and it figures out when sunrise and sunset is suppose to be and then turns on and off accordingly. I haven't found one that can do the on/off, on/off sequence that I needed (see below). I'm sure they exist, maybe someone would know.

I'm planning on using X10 because I already have it installed in my house to control lights. My porch lights go on just before sunset and then dim around midnight and turn off at sunrise. Random lights turn on and off when I'm away, etc.

The coop motor I am using is from Add-A-Motor, there is a link in my coop page. The timing for the motor is a little complex because it operates in either direction using power on and power off. Each time it gets power it operates in the opposite direction. So the timer has to turn on the power, the door opens. The power has to stay on long enough for that to complete. Then the power has to be turned off. To lower the door, the power has to be turned on again, then off again once the door is closed.

The X10 software also has date/time/location settings so it can compute sunrise and sunset. It also allows me to set it up multiple on/offs, so it powers on 1 hour after sunrise and off 3 minutes later (door open), on 1 hour after sunset and off 3 minutes later (door closed).

 

[Springthing]

Thanks!

I'll look all that stuff up and see if it makes sense once I have all the pieces of the puzzle!

 

[chickenstricken]

Awesome coop, and great byc page

 

[Springthing]

Quote:
So, after doing a little bit of reading, I see that you have the programmer (transmitter) that you can link to any number of outlet/switches in order to turn things on/off.

So you've got (or you will get) the programmer that is set to go on, like you said above, 1 hour after sunrise and sunset with the "on" cycle only being 3 minutes. Are you able to set the timer/programmer to only be on for the 1 minute required to operate the motor/door or is the minimum time between events 3 minutes?

Lastly, do you know if there is anything wrong with using a usual plug-in timer to control the motor you have? This would mean that you'd have a good 15 minutes or so of "on" time before the peg for the 'off' cycle could click the timer off, if you know what I mean?

Thanks in advance for any information, sorry to have hijacked your post about your coop to ask questions!