hall.nora•4d agoMost Upvoted

Wasted $80 on a "chicken-proof" automatic door that jammed after two weeks

Bought this automatic coop door off Amazon because I was tired of getting up at dawn to let them out. Seller had great reviews, said it was heavy duty and weather sealed. Second big rainstorm we had, the slides got all gunked up with mud and it wouldn't shut. Came home to find all three hens sleeping in the run overnight, and a raccoon had dug under the side. Nobody got hurt luckily, but I had to manually override it every night after that until I just took the thing down. Has anyone else had better luck with a specific brand of automatic door that actually holds up?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jessica4d ago

Yeah that inward vs outward thing is actually backwards usually. You want it opening outward so it can't get pushed open by a raccoon or predator pushing on it from the outside. My dad had the same problem with his first one and a guy at the feed store cleared that up for him.

drew_patel574d ago

Clicked through to this because I had the exact same nightmare with an automatic door last spring, ended up losing two of my girls to a fox that figured out the sensor timing. Try looking into the chickendome brand, they use a completely different rail system that doesn't have those thin metal slides that gunk up. The whole bottom part is basically one solid piece with a rubber gasket that wipes itself clean every time it closes, and I've had mine up for two winters now without a single jam. Rain, snow, mud splatters, hasn't mattered once. You gotta install it so the door opens inward instead of outward if your setup allows it, that way the wind doesn't force the track to bind up either.