Solar Powered Automatic Chicken Coop

We had 3 chickens when we got back from our trip. The day we got back one got killed by coons! GRrrr! So I went and bought 4 chickens from a local farm that turned out to be very ill (I wrote about that here). We lost 3 of the 4 chickens I bought and one of ours got really ill too! After a quarantine and some medicinal herbs she’s gained back her health and is doing quite well. And then I got a call from our old friends in the band Mama Magnolia (@mama-magnolia). Since they are touring so much these days they wanted to know if I could add their 5 chickens to our flock! Heck Yes! That’s perfect!

So now we have a full flock again, 8 chickens, all very healthy with beautiful shiny feathers.
But we needed to update our coop. For one rats and mice love a chicken coop and since we feed our chickens a lot of our table scraps, laying concrete on the floor of their coop was a must. We also threw up thinner meshed wire instead of the chicken wire that was on the coop before. This helps keep mice out.

Then there was the door from their coop into the run. We had to go open it every morning and close it every night. If we forgot or were out of town they either didn’t get access to their run or those pesky raccoons could come try to take a meal. So Rob automated it. Using a raspberry pie and a car antenna he rigged up a door that we could open and close from our phones or our computers. After getting out all the bugs we decided it would be best to put it on a timer so at sunset the door closes and sunrise it opens. No more need to go out late at night in the cold when we were ready for bed to close the darn door! So freaking awesome.

Then there were the waterers. A pain in the butt to fill up and they would freeze. Rob to the rescue again! He built a 5 gallon bucket waterer that can be filled from the top easily and has a built in heater so that the water won’t freeze! 2 birds with one stone!!!

Of course he had to take this further. We had some solar panels and batteries laying around so why not put the whole coop off the grid! And he did too! 3 old car batteries under their roof hooked up to 2 solar panels that get great light and the coop runs mostly on its own. The water heater switches on when the temps get too cold and cycles on and off as well as a heat lamp in the coop for the ladies and their door does its auto open and close too.

Heating elements use a lot of electricity so on the cold nights those 3 old batteries can’t run it all, when the raspberry pie sees that the batteries are getting low it switches to shore power, we couldn’t get the whole thing running 100% of the time off solar but you know I think these are some pretty lucky chickens. And automating your little homestead can give you the time to get to some of those other projects you’ve been putting off.

When spring comes I’ll tell you all about our automatic drip line system that we’ll be redoing with the building of our new raised beds. Sometimes I despise technology and then it’s times like these where I think, “You know, it’s not that bad after all.”

Do you have any cool ways you’ve automated your homestead? Tell me about it! I’m sure all us homesteaders would love to know more!