Stop my birds flying the coup

[vic evans 1]

Not really a 'plane subject but I'll ask anyway.

I've a chicken shed with a vertically sliding, chicken size, ply hatch in the main wooden door & I'm looking for ways to open & close this hatch when I'm away to stop Mr Fox eating my chooks.

I've thought of a model yacht sail winch operated via a day/night sensor but that is as far as my electronic kowledge will get me. I've got 2 & 3 cell Lipos to operate things & can almost certainly build a set up if I'm pointed in the right direction.

Anyone care to help?

[Dave Hopkin]

Are the chickens all well trained and get back indoors at last light? Otherwise are you not in danger of just locking them out?

What about one of these? **LINK**

[Gary Manuel]

Have you seen THESE?

[vic evans 1]

Cheers Dave. Yes they're well trained & always return when the sun starts going down. Nice gadget but if I can find some way of shutting/opening the hatch automatically at sunset/sunrise it'll save the neighbours a trip twice a day & keep the chooks safe.

[vic evans 1]

Thanks Gary. That'll do the job.I never thought to see if one existed as I thought it too bizzare a concept. Obviously wrong!

[Gary Manuel]

[John F]

Chickens will invariably go to bed before the light fades.

Vic, do you have the chickens roaming free around your garden or do they have a large enclosed run?

There are many automatic dawn - dusk door systems that you can buy. **LINK** or here **LINK**

The main flaw in the plan is that foxes are very much around well after dawn and, as happened with my neighbour two weeks ago, the foxes came in and killed the lot. He has even seen them hunting for most of the day due to the demand of feeding their cubs.

If you are going to build something yourself the problem with ply is that is can, and does, stick very well, so I would avoid plywood but go for perspex or steel doors. I used a thin plastic chopping board which worked well but was sick of the batteries running out, same with the one I bought - that ate batteries quite quickly. 

In the end and being so close to open farmland I decided to just build a large enclosed run instead.  Although only completed in Feb I haven't lost another girl yet.

 

Edited By John F on 10/05/2016 11:44:28

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[John F]

I bet you don't call your wife a "gadget" to her face, unless a carer is typing this on your behalf.

Edited By John F on 10/05/2016 11:57:01

[vic evans 1]

Thanks John F. Our chooks have a large outside enclosure but only about 1m high. They have a smaller interconnecting foxproof enclosure which we usually shut at dusk leaving the chook door open. Not had a problem in about 10 years although we live in open country in rural Brittany. Our nearest neighbour is about 500m away so a pain to ask them to shut up/open the chooks house especially in mid summer with the long days. We have about 3 Ha of fields surrounded by open farmland so great for plane flying but not so good keeping foxy away from Mme Chook. I'm going to buy one of the door openers & hope the batteries will last a couple of weeks if we go away. I take your point about the sliding door.

Thanks to all who offered advice.

[J D 8]

As a long time chook keeper I have found an electric fence line along the top of the boundary fence a good deterrent for keeping Mr fox at bay. Do not know if this would be practical for your set up though.

[Ronaldo]

Love the amusing comments on here Ha Ha ... very good

My son keeps chooks next to farmland, and is now hatching ducky eggs. We also built an enclosed run, been ok up to now.

Ronaldo

[Tony Smith 7]

We've used electric netting for our hen run since issues at the last place where a fox would take birds during the day.