Posts Tagged chickens

Arduino powered chicken coop pop door!

On Thursday, I saw a really cool idea on ebay, an automated chicken pop door.  £85 though was not for the faint hearted.

My friend Gary had some motors, but no knowledge how to do the timing circuits.  My friend Ben however had that sort of stuff sorted.  He’d been to a google conference and given an Arduino.

With a little technical know how and lots of electrical tape, an idea was born.

The door was 2×2 routed with a small hole for sliding.  Pulleys made light work of the weight so a small servo motor could be attached.  You do need a continuous rotation servo though.

Adding in the code and the Arduino in situ:

 

It works wonderfully.  Total cost, about £50.  So it’s a saving.  Not including the wood and pulleys, but the £80 door wouldn’t have included those either.

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Sheds (again)

Only just noticed by looking through my archives… If you look at:

http://www.waark.com/2008/02/sheds/

And

http://www.waark.com/2011/11/chicken-shed/

You’ll see my poor ol’ friend Ben being mugged into not only once putting up the same shed, but twice.  But I have realised the shed is 3 years old… not bad for something that only cost £99, has been broken into, torn down and rebuilt.

 

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IBCs and Chickens…

The IBCs needed levelling so for a few hours Friday and today I spent my time smacking bricks with a sledge hammer.

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Yesterday I visited my friend Kris in Norfolk. It was a surprise 30th Birthday party and we turned up about 3hrs late. Kris is a bit of an inspiration as he has an amazing backyard allotment and many chickens. I tried to help round up one of the feral ones, but no luck.

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He’s offered for me to go up and learn some basics, which’ll be handy when we get our own chocks.

Hopefully this week off I start on Thurs I’ll get the boxes all set up and get some stuff growing!

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Plans

Plan for the new garden

Click on the above to have a look in full scale. 
Originally I was intending to do 2-3ft deep raised beds made of brick.  This is probably too expensive for my pocket however, so we may end up digging it into the ground instead.
The fruit trees at the back will replace the original conifers, the existing pond will be under the patio area.
Why have I planned it this way?
The garden is north facing, so the fruit trees at the very rear of the property are sited there to maximise the use of available sunlight.  The chicken runs are situated under the trees which will eventually provide the shade.  They’re also up that end because when I clean them out, I want to move their effluence onto the vegetable patch as manure.  The telephone box is there just to be interesting (and provide a funky yet expensive shed). 
The idea behind the circular vegetable bed was inspired by this instructable, it allows us to better rotate our crops and also be able to reach all around with as few paths as possible.  It also is a bit different than rectangular raised beds which are lets face it, a bit dull.
The arch and vegetable beds will break the allotment side of the garden from the social side – though technically we’ll still have the herb beds situated close to the house.  Where the old pond is will be a patio dining area, which will be next to the BBQ and pizza oven.  The old pond may yet still be used as a soakaway or as a resevoir for the garden.
Finally close to the house will be laid to lawn, this’ll be for the odd occasional bit of sun bathing (which can only really happen between 11am and 3ishpm as the house is north facing, but don’t tell the missus) and ‘playing’ on.

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