Choosing a chicken coop door

 Choosing a chicken coop door for us wasn’t as easy as 1, 2, 3. We are on our second year of being chicken owners and I love it! Although I love them, it gets to become a chore some nights having to walk back out and close everything up at night. 

First automatic chicken coop door we got was part of my Mother’s Day gift. 💝 but didn’t work so well. After Ben got all the measurements set up, pieces made, got the solar panel charged up in the sun and our youngest son helped him with installing it….it didn’t work. The App we were instructed to download to work it rarely worked with it. The remote control didn’t close it for us. We had to go out and press the close button on the solar panel every single night defeating the purpose of having an automatic coop door.

China made vs American made

We ordered it through Amazon from China. It was cheaper than the American made one we were eyeing up so we thought we’d save a few bucks. The customer service man from Amazon was very kind and tried to help, we got into contact with the makers, they made it quite a hassle but after a few weeks we got a replacement. During the wait for the replacement, they sent us a code for $40 on Amazon to leave a good review. We threw the code out 🗑️. We appreciate the gift card, but we’re not going to lose our integrity for it. In our opinion, that company did not provide a 5 star performance. 

The second one they sent didn’t work well at all. Every evening when we’d close it, no matter what we tried with the app, manually pressing buttons and trying to time it, the chicken coop door would open after every 30 minutes through out the night. First night it clearly stressed out our chickens a bit. 

🐔🐔😖😖🐔🐔

So we bought the other automatic chicken coop door we had our eye on. Through Amazon. It costs more but it's American owned and we’re happy with it. Company is Farmlite. No app baloney, timer works and comes with remote….that works!! Weather resistant which will be tested in these Wisconsin winters!! So far so good. I recommend it 👍

Get it for your chickens here https://amzn.to/4d1J6tC  👈🐔

Now I haven't had to worry if we were gone late and forgot to close everything up! We free range our chickens but if we know we are leaving for awhile, we keep them in the fence. Most evenings, I can go out, make sure their window is shut, get them in the fence, count them up and head back inside for the evening. They still get their extra long summer nights outside, just in the safety of the fence and when they're ready to head in for the night, the automatic coop door closes up for me!

Time sure has flown by

 If you're visiting my page, YAY!!! Thank you. As you can see, my last blog post was in 2020!!! Time sure has flown by and alot has changed. Both with my family and the world. Covid really affected people and our country. We're the United States of America and since covid, our country seems far from United. It is very sad. Growing up I always had such pride for America. I knew I was lucky to be born here and still feel lucky. I love our freedom and hope we not only get to keep it but that our children grow up in a land of the FREE too. The whole worlds just gone crazy.

Moving on, when I started this blog, I was in a real good place mentally. My kids were young and I was just happy. Although I still am  happy, my kids are older and alot has changed.

For one, in my last post I touch on the subject of hoping the kids were able to head back to public school soon. Although my daycare kids went back, my son went back for a year and the things that were entering our school systems and how they ran things....well we didn't agree with everything. We have been homeschooling now for the last two years. We have our ups and downs. We have our days that we get a lot accomplished and days we focus on reading and physical activities which are both super important.

I could go on and on about our whys of homeschooling and things we've been through since my last post in 2020 but I mainly just wanted to hop back on my blogspot and say hello!!! I'm a tired mom, still working from home and trying to help my son's dad with the household income that needs to come in while making sure the house is clean, the pets are taken care of (oh yeah, we added chickens to our family a little over a year ago!) and making sure there is a home cooked meal every night...which makes needing to provide good steady income very important because if you live in America and are raising a family, you know thats an expensive trip!!!

Well my duties are calling and this mom's little bit of sit down time is up! Hope everyone is doing well and hang in there!!! Time sure has flown by since 2020, try to find the simple pleasures in your everyday!