Spent $200 on a fancy automatic chicken door and kinda regret it

I bought this auto door from Amazon back in March because I was tired of waking up at dawn to let my girls out. It worked fine for like two months, then the sensor got all messed up during a rainy week and it wouldn't close at night. I came out to find a raccoon had gotten inside and killed two of my hens, it was awful. Now I'm back to manually opening and closing every day, has anyone else had bad luck with those auto doors?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_river26d agoMost Upvoted

Jumped straight to the raccoon part and had to stop reading for a second. That's brutal. I almost bought that same Amazon door last spring but went with a different brand instead, and even that one got jammed halfway open during a frost. Now I just use a heavy rock to prop it open during the day and slide a piece of plywood over it at night. Under twenty bucks total.

leelewis25d ago

Same here @the_river, that raccoon part is the kind of detail that sticks with you. You made a smart call going with a different brand, those cheap Amazon doors are basically a gamble with your sanity once winter hits. Your rock and plywood setup is actually genius though, my dad used to do the same thing on his old shed and it never failed. Why spend a hundred bucks when a rock and some scrap wood do the job better, right?