Tell me about your "pop" /chicken door.

[bearcat73]

pips&peeps :

My husband used two pieces of wood to make a track on each side and it slides up and down by a rope attached to the pulleys.

I wanna see pics of this, please!​

 

[quercus21]

I myself use a sliding door. As you can see with the following pictures, I use a rope to raise and lower it. The rope can extend to the outside of the run if we want it to. The bottom of the door overlaps the floor.

 

[pips&peeps]

Ours is built the same way as the above picture, but it is on the inside of the building.

The rope goes up the wall and to the ceiling and hangs from pulleys and I open and close it with the rope.

 

[Nemo]

Ours is actually a dog door. We converted a kennel building, and it had a dozen pens inside and fenced runs outside. The door is sheet metal and slides up and down. The opening is about 9x12.

 

[SterlingAcres]

Ours was a dog door too. It's probably 2x3. DH tied a rope to it's handle and it's on a pulley system that I tie up every morning. This is the only picture I can find that shows it (in the background with the chickens)... The girl is one of our nieces, Destiny.

 

[mrsengeseth]

mine is 12x12, hinged opens into the run rather than into the hen house, it is chained open during the day and chained shut at night.

 

[Heather J]

I don't have any installed yet, but the one on our chicken shack is going to hinge down in the middle of the human door to make a ramp (to keep the ducks out, we hope), and the ones in the chicken condo are going to be on pulleys that slide up on the inside. The coop itself has a human door on the back and I'll have three separate pens with three separate doors. DH is trying to figure out how to make them work with the push of a button on a solenoid (because he's just that techy, lol) We'll see how they work once they're done. I plan to be able to pull the rope from the inside to open and close them without actually stepping into the individual coop spaces, but will only be separated from them by some chicken wire, so I'll be able to keep an eye on everyone and see what's going on, count heads at night and check food and water.

I'll have to share pics when we finally get to that stage.

 

[gwynhwyfar]

Mine opens down and the part that would be inside the house has little slats and is the gangplank for the girls to get down to the ground on. The hinges are at the bottom and on the outside-top there's a latch to hold it shut. I <3 it.

 

[Sylvie]

Do the sliding pop doors have a way to lock at night or do you rely on sheer weight to keep coons out?

 

[Heather J]

Someone on here showed a picture of their sliding door with one of those push buttons that has a spring in it. They push the button to get it open, it slides past the button, which automatically pops out when the door clears it, then it holds the door open. The general consensus is that if the bottom lip of the door is down below the reach of the coon, the coon can't get it open because he doesn't have the tactile grip we do. I'm not sure if I want to risk my chickens to this, but it seems to be working for others.