As I’m getting older my birthday present requests have been getting odd.  A few years ago I asked for a baby stroller for my birthday.  I never would have imagined that 10 years ago.  But you know what, that stroller has been amazing!  Another great birthday present was the VSB Automatic Door Opener for our chicken coop.  This great gizmo opens and closes the door of our backyard chicken coop which improves security and increases egg production.

A quick aside: I know an automated chicken coop door opener isn’t for everyone but some of these posts which I expect to reach limited audiences can blow up.  Last Friday I wrote about the Bravo 4102 CD / DVD duplicator I use at work and that post blew up!  I have had messages from around the world and the manufacturer has contacted me this week about using my material in some of their promotional work.  That is pretty cool!  Now let’s talk about chicken coops…

The VSB kind of looks like a polished product that a madman on the loose at Radio Shack would come up with.  Inside the component box is a circuit board that holds the operating components of the mechanism.  The main components are a simple electric motor, some pulleys, and a few sensors.  A photocell activates the motor, raising the door at sunrise and lowering it at dusk.  Four AA batteries power the entire unit.  Various sensors help the VSB raise and lower the door.

When I first started looking for an automatic door opener I found a lot of options out there.  YouTube has any number of homemade concoctions that often involved duct tape and some sort of modified electric drill.  They looked unreliable at best.  There were some high tech solutions that urban farmers had created that looked difficult to recreate.  Finally I stumbled across the VSB Automatic Door Opener.  A man in Europe with backyard chickens created the VSB.  When I bought my unit I had to buy it on Ebay in the UK.  Now there are several vendors in the US.

The VSB can be configured in a number of ways to reliably open and close the door on a chicken coop.  I simply tacked up a piece of scrap wood in my coop so I could mount the VSB.  My door is made of the same Hardy board material (concrete composite) that my roost box is made of.  Be warned, my door is heavier than the VSB is really supposed to be used with.  So far I have avoided burning out the motor but I have snapped the fishing line several times.  I also have the timer add on that I picked up used on eBay.  It allows me to open the door before sunrise in the dark winter months.

The setup on the VSB Automatic Door Opener is pretty simple.  Begin by mounting the unit in the coop.  I pulled out enough fishing line so I could tie onto my door.  The next step is to tie a knot in the line.  The knot catches on a device in the VSB and stops the motor when the door is fully raised.  After the knot is in place, tie the line onto your coop door.  The unit has another sensor that recognizes when the door is resting on something and stops the motor from lowering the door any further.

My installation of the VSB automatic door opener.

You’re probably thinking, “Wow Jon!  That is a pretty fancy gizmo for a chicken coop.”  Yes, it is.  But it is also a good tool for improving flock health and safety.  The VSB allows the chickens to get out at first light no matter the weather and whether I am home or not.  The chickens can hop on out and get to the business of eating, drinking and scratching.  Since egg laying is stimulated by light, these longer days lead to better egg production.  The chickens know the sound of the door opener and start heading for the door when they hear it in the evening.  The coop is closed and secured even when I am not home.

Can chickens be trained to go into a coop?  You bet.  It can take a few days to get the chickens used to the automated process, but all of my chickens figure it out after a while.  They naturally want to find a place to roost when evening comes and they learn quickly to get inside the roost box before the door closes.  I have never had a chicken get caught under the door since the motor is designed to operate slowly.

Any reader of my site knows that I like to make quick videos to better explain tech gadgets.  Here is a quick video I shot with my iPhone that shows the VSB in action:

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The VSB Automatic Door Opener, another one of my favorite things.  I have had the VSB for 4 or 5 years now and the only issues I have had to deal with is about 3 or 4 broken strings (my own fault for using a heavy door) and changing the AA batteries about once a year.  Think you might want one for your chicken coop?  There is a link to buy one along with my live chicken coop cam over at my other site – www.LiveChickenCam.com – the link is in the Amazon sidebar.