Sunday, August 10, 2025

Update on the New Hen House Gate

In the last post, we told you about a purchase we made in which we installed a solar powered automatic hen house door.  Currently, each night we go out and manually close the gate and each morning, we open the gate.  This keeps them safely protected from minks that have plagued the birds.  We had gone out the night of installation and discovered that the gate was closed and all birds were safe and sound.

In the photo below, you can see the solar panel mounted on the wall of the hen house above the door.  There are several settings and a remote control.  You can set it to close at sunset and open at sunrise.  Alternatively, you can set it like an alarm to open at any certain time (6 AM, for example) and close at any time (8 PM, for example).  Or you can use the remote control to open and close at will.

This morning we walked out to the barn to do our morning chores and...  The door was closed.  It was still before sunrise, but we were a little concerned that it wasn't going to open.  As we finished chores, I noticed a green light came on and the door opened.  It was 6:24 AM.  All the birds began filing out, one by one.  A white hen and a red hen zoomed out as you can see!


How about that!  This evening, we walked out at 8 PM to check on the doors.  It was quiet in the pasture.  All the hens were in the hen house, but the door was still open.  We decided to sit out and wait and watch.  At 8:04 exactly, a red light appeared on the door's indicator light and the door slowly closed.

What a lovely contraption!  We opened the door to the hen house and everyone was inside and on the roosting bars.  It's hard to see with the shadow, but there are 47 birds in here, all settled in for the night.  In addition to laying eggs in the nesting boxed that are all closed up for the night, the birds are doing an additional job for me.  They are making fertilizer.  All the poop that falls to the ground will be swept up and used as fertilizer in the garden after allowing it to 'cool down' a little bit.

So far, this is working out to be a good purchase.  No fowl play at all with installation of this hen house automatic door.  Two thumbs up!

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