With the right gadgets in place, caring for chickens can be completely easy.
When Imgur DIY-er avgfitfreak decided to adopt a few chickens, he wanted to make sure they'd always be cared for, despite his busy schedule.
Since hiring a babysitter was difficult in his neighborhood, he wanted to find a way to engineer devices that could automate some of his chicken coop chores.
After searching around the internet for design plans, he came up methods of automating his chickens' feeding and water supplies, while also automating their coop door. He'd power all of these cool features with solar energy, harnessed with a solar panel.
Souping up a chicken coop is a wonderful way to explore your design and engineering creativity.
Thanks to his nifty contraptions, this DIY-er has been able to reduce his chore load, leaving him more time to relax and enjoy his chicken companions.
Keep scrolling through our gallery to learn how this technologically savvy chicken coop cares for its chickens even when their dad is out of town.
When Imgur DIY-er avgfitfreak knew he'd need to spend time away from home every once in a while, he wanted to make sure his chickens were still cared for in his absence.
With babysitters hard to come by in his area, he decided to turn to technology for the answer.
He began exploring different ways to automate all of the chores he'd usually do for his chickens, and came up with some genius solutions.
First, he'd need a power source.
He decided to power his automated chicken coop with solar energy.
This tactic avoided him the nuisance of stringing a long power cord across his lawn.
This DIY-er positioned his solar panel toward the south, so that it would catch as many rays as possible throughout the day.
He used old angle iron and wooden studs to lock the panel in place.
The energy harvested through this solar panel would power a timer system, which would automatically open and close the chicken coop doors every day.
Since this DIY-er's chicken coop was quite small, he did much of the necessary wiring outside of the coop before positioning the timer in place.
He attached this timer to the solar power battery, and harnessed it onto the coop wall in a protective box, safe from any unwanted pecking.
Not only would the chickens need to get in and out of their coop on a daily basis, but they'd also need to stay nourished.
This DIY-er stepped up his automated contraptions to make sure his little chickens would always have plenty of food and water to eat and drink.
He rigged a gravity feeder, created using a plastic bucket and PVC piping.
Thanks to this contraption, this DIY-er can add feed to the bucket once a week, and as the chickens eat, more feed gradually trickles down into their feeder inside the coop.
He designed their water system to harness the powers of gravity in much the same way.
This DIY-er connected an outer water bucket to two chicken drinking cups, which the chickens figured out to use fairly quickly.
Thanks to some technological savvy, this DIY-er has a chicken coop that does many of his chicken-related chores for him.
With these tasks out of the way, this DIY-er gets to spend more time enjoying his little chicks as they grow up.
This DIY-er applied some of his tech-savvy tricks, and outfitted his chicken coop with awesome, automated features.
What do you think of this chicken coop? Have you ever built a chicken coop? Let us know in the comments below.
Please SHARE this automated chicken coop with other chicken parents in your community!
