Are you a chicken owner who would love to have something more automatic for your flock’s coop door? Something to protect your birds at night and is reliable too? Consider the Chickcozy Automatic Chicken Coop Door Opener. Here is my honest review of this product, the great and the concerns.
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Chickcozy Review backstory
How a little ol’ small scale, hobby homesteader Instagram account grabbed Chickcozy’s attention, I do not know. However, they trusted me to give their product an honest try and review so I’ll give it my best.
The Johnson Home NC flock
I’ve been a chicken owner for 2 years now and I most definitely jumped into chicken life all in with little research ahead of time.
Yep, I was that woman who walked into Tractor Supply one spring day with her children for dog food and left with 3 hens and 2 ducks.
A quick text to my husband to let him know of our hasty decision meant he’d need to build us a brooder box better than the cardboard box I was going to use, THAT NIGHT. And then of course a coop and run. In like the next 2 months or less. No pressure, honey!
He’s the type of husband who says “well this is inconvenient but I’ll see what I can do”. I know I am a very blessed wife.
Being the engineer he is, he did some research and came up with a design that would allow a full sized door a human could access for eggs. Our coop is admittedly a little small but in our defense, we only wanted a few laying hens. The ducks were just too cute to pass up in the store. Hindsight is perfectly 20/20 though.
And as we all know… CHICKEN MATH IS REAL. Naturally, we have double the original bird count now two years later.
A coop with no door!
My main goal when building our coop and run was that it had to be as predator-proofed as we could possibly make it. This meant NO CHICKEN WIRE; only hardware cloth and cattle panel. Big predators, slithering predators, flying predators… I wanted to TRY to keep our flock protected from it all.
Our coop is inside of our run so our original coop design has a door cut out for entry and exit but nothing that can close up at night since the run door is closable.
So when Chickcozy reached out about their automatic door, I figured why not give it a try?
Initial Chickcozy thoughts
When the box arrived, I was excited to open it and see, first of all: the adorable chicken stickers! They might be my favorite part and I have no clue where I’d even use them. But what a cute touch to add to the packaging!
Additionally, I adored how Chickcozy supplied the batteries needed to get my new automatic chicken coop door working. And the good kind too! There is also a provided AC adapter if your coop is close to electricity.
The Chickcozy design has a lot of different settings for when you’d like the door to open in the morning and close at night with an included buffer of extra minutes just in case some birds aren’t ready to go up for the night right at dusk.
After unboxing, my husband got to work installing the door only to come to screeching halt when he realized two things:
1- the Chickcozy door was too small for our existing coop door opening!
2- he wasn’t so sure our Buff Orpington, Abby, would be able to fit through the door. She’s a big girl!
Click the green button above to watch the unboxing and my initial thoughts.
Ingenuity and perseverance serve well
Remember, my husband is an engineer. Their brains just work different! Or maybe just his works differently than mine… obviously, right??
When he told me these two things above I was heartbroken. I really wanted Chickcozy to work out for us. But he assured me he had a plan to try something before fully giving up.
My husband was able to add some 2×4 posts inside the coop to “shrink” the existing opening to a smaller size that the Chickcozy automatic door opener could be mounted to and work properly. Perfect! Now how about concern #2, the Big Girl?
Turns out, Abby is a lot more feather than width. She does fit through the door just fine.
Installation is as product description states– can be done in about 1 minute! A very easy installation.
Chickcozy Automatic Chicken Door Hiccup
I agreed to be honest in my review with Chickcozy and to you, my reader.
Unfortunately our Chickcozy door does come with a pretty major hiccup.
What I thought was a sensor defect or battery life issue turns out to be a sliding door track issue that many other Chickcozy door users have experienced as well.
Even the slightest wood chip or chicken poop fragment in the door’s track will stop the door from closing or opening properly. It is alarming to hear your birds in distress first thing in the morning because there’s only a 3 inch gap in the door and they want out of the coop immediately!
Clearing the track of debris with a long thin piece of metal or a screwdriver then resetting the door works. But it is inconvenient from a product that is supposed to make a chicken owner’s life a little less stressed. This is something I have to go out and do every single morning before I’ve had my first cup of coffee. Not exactly my favorite morning chore.
With that said, the product description does say it has built-in safety sensors and it is not wrong about that! The sensors do their job very well.
I believe this product is best used in coop door openings that are up off of the ground or floor a little ways, maybe 2-3 inches of a step up for the birds. This could possibly avoid having chips and debris get caught daily in the track. Because our coop door opening was already existing, there’s not much more we can do to it to move it up off the floor and still provide the safety and weather protection our flock deserves.
If you choose Chickcozy for your automatic chicken coop door opener, make it a common practice to check the door’s track every time you go into the run. Most definitely it needs to be a daily practice.
Final thoughts on the Chickcozy Automatic Chicken Door Opener
In summary, I believe this product is great! I think there are some edits to future editions that could be made.
Taking into consideration that most coop doors are located at ground or floor level where debris can get into the track easier should be one factor. If nothing can be done about the design and the super sensitive sensors, then perhaps noting this in instructions specifically or in product description would be a good idea for Chickcozy.
All in all, if you are looking for an automatic chicken coop door opener you can rely on to open and close and protect your flock that uses very little battery, give Chickcozy a consideration.
You can check out more product description and reviews on Amazon by clicking this button below, my affiliate link which if you purchase from it, earns me a commission at NO cost to you!
Follow along for more chicken things
Thank you for giving my review of Chickcozy’s Automatic Chicken Coop Door Opener a read. If you like chicken raising things or small scale homesteading, check out my blog www.johnsonhomenc.com and join my weekly newsletter HERE.
In addition to raising laying hens, we also raise cornish cross meat birds and have a few blog posts on our experiences and some how-tos on our website listed above.
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