Need Suggestions For Chicken's Door

[lorain's fids]

We are in need of suggestions for the chicken door. What works and what doesn't. Anything you wish you would've done differently. I know some of you have it open upward and some from side to side. If the door is in the pen how do you open and close it and even though it's in the pen how do you lock it. Also I do think we already made one error with the door and that's the size of the opening-it's 12 x 12. I think the girls will have to duck their heads to get in.

 

[darkmatter]

See my BYC page for pics of my setup. I hinged my chicken door at the bottom and a clasp at the top, when I open it; it forms a ramp out to the Run. I've stapled strips on it to give gripping areas and stapled a strip of inner-tube rubber over the hinge area so it flexes and "pops" off any chicken poo that would "gum up the works". It's been in use nearly two decades. Just be sure to have a brick or stone landing spot so the wood won't rot from contact with the ground.

 

[lorain's fids]

Quote:
Thank you for your suggestion on the chicken door.

 

[Hawkeye95]

I have not built my coop yet, so I'm hoping you get a lot more responses with neat ideas for doors! My plan is to use the typical pop door that rises above the door. I was going to do what I have seen a lot of other people do- which is attach a wire (or thick cord?) to the top with an eyelet hook and then put eyelets into the ceiling to bring the cord up and out a hole drilled into the outside wall so I can open and close from the outside. Most people put a hook on the outside and hook the cord on at the "open" position so it won't fall back down. I don't know how to "lock" it. I was going to have my door lower down past the opening and make the piece of wood fairly heavy so there will be no way to open it from the outside. Look in the Coop Design pages and a lot of people have their doors outlined with great pictures and show how they did the cord.

 

[Hawkeye95]

will try to find a link...

okay- here. If you look just a few pictures down, there is an excellent picture of how their pop door opens, with nice description about it. The very first picture shows the cord from the outside and how it hangs down for easy access.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=66725-wichita-cabin-coop

 

[TruGritCkn]

Thanks for the link Hawkeye that has a lot of good photos of the pop door. I still need to add one to my coop so that really helped.

 

[debid]

Mine swings up and I have it on a rope & pulley system to open/close from outside the run with a carabiner to latch the rope to the fence so it stays open. I set it up so that my 5YOs can open the pop door at the crack of dawn when they're up and running. We don't lock the pop door closed at night but it does have spring hinges so anything but a large critter couldn't open it (and large critters can't get into the run).

 

[Hawkeye95]

Quote:
You're welcome! That coop I linked to, it's one of my favorites! It has a lot of great ideas in it. Even the nesting boxes have a good idea- with the removable front for easy hosing off. I'm going to try to incorporate at lot of those ideas into mine.