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Sensor Controls "Chicken Door"
A machinist and an electrical engineer teamed up to create an automatic door to let chickens go in and out of a hen house after they "got tired of feeding the wildlife" when they forgot to shut the door at night.
After looking at wood sliding doors on the market, they decided they could come up with something b
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Sensor Controls "Chicken Door" LIVESTOCK Poultry 34-2-31 A machinist and an electrical engineer teamed up to create an automatic door to let chickens go in and out of a hen house after they "got tired of feeding the wildlife" when they forgot to shut the door at night.
After looking at wood sliding doors on the market, they decided they could come up with something better.
The Pullet-Shut Automatic Door is made of aluminum so it won't rot or rust. The door moves on a hinge avoiding the problem of binding slides. It has no switches that can fail - it's programmed to open and close with a magnetic sensor.
The system runs off a 12-volt battery for up to a year without recharging, and programming is simple.
"Hold the magnet over the red circle at the time you want it to open in the morning," Tony Andric, co-inventor, explains. "That evening hold the magnet over the red circle again when you want it to close, and it's done. It will open and close every day at those times."
The set times won't be affected if you use the magnet to open or shut the door anytime such as during a storm. To reset open and close times, simply put the magnet in the red circle for 10 seconds.
The door can be adjusted to open as wide as you want, Andric adds. As a safety feature, if a chicken is in the way when the door is set to close, the door will close a minute later.
Installation is simple. Cut an 11 by 15-in. hole, attach the door with screws through pre-drilled holes in the frame, place the controller box above the door, and hook it up to a battery.
"The door opens out, but we would be happy to customize it to open inward," Andric says. "It's also water resistant, unless the door is completely underwater."
Andric and his business partner, Mark George, are building the doors out of solid 7/8-in. aluminum and sell them for $180 plus shipping through their website, which includes a YouTube video of the door in operation.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Pullet-Shut Automatic Door, 5438 East FM 20, Lockhart, Texas 78644 (ph 512 376-0003; www.chickendoors.com).
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