Slick Chick is an Automated Chicken Door that maximizes foraging time, reduces opportunity for predation, and reduces man hours for chicken care.
Slick Chick can be opened/closed in the following ways:
1. Alexa Voice Command
2. Google Home Voice Command
3. Detecting Sunlight (with integrated delay option)
4. Pressing a button on an app
5. Pressing a Physical Switch on Slick Chick
Future Proof Modular Design
Slick Chick is Modular in Nature. If Alexa/Google Home are replaced by the next level of technology, we have designed Slick Chick so that it can interface with future technology via our Input Array.
Slick Chick Can be Solar/Battery Powered, or can be Plugged in.
Target Audience:
Families with Backyard Chickens
Hatcheries that allow chickens to free range, or forage
Farms that have “chicken tractors” or “mobile coops”
What Problem Does it Solve, or Opportunity does it Create:
We live in a connected world. The old-school manual chicken doors, or timer based models have limited functionality. Timer models regularly need adjusting to stay in sync with the constantly changing daylight hours.
We live in a world where Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Assistants (Like Siri and Alexa) , and Robotics are solving people’s needs on a daily basis. However, the technology is so new that not many devices have tapped into the power of Voice Control via Virtual Assistants like Alexa. It is our goal to enable more people with busy schedules to be able to have chickens by reducing the time sensitive, repetitive task of letting the chickens out in the morning and securing them at night. Depending on the distance the coop is from the house this could save 10-20 minutes per day. Averaged to 15 mins for sake of illustration, that adds up to over a week and a half worth of work days per year that can be recovered and redeployed on other tasks.
In 2013 <1% of US households had chickens
But an additional 4% planned to have chickens within the next 5 years.
That is more than 100% anticipated increase in backyard chicken ownership year over year, 2013-2018. (see Source 1)
Two of the most important things to the health and survival of chickens is foraging time, and predation prevention. Surveyed non-commercial chicken owners list predation prevention as their main challenge (49%), and low cost feed as the second largest challenge (28%). (see source 2)
Slick Chick addressing both of those issues singlehandedly mitigates 77% of backyard poultry owners problems. When chickens are open to forage during the maximum daylight hours possible, they require less commercial feed, and when the coop is secured prior to the increased predation period when the sun is down fewer chickens are lost to predation.
Src 1: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/nahms/poultry/downloads/poultry10/Poultry10_dr_Urban_Chicken_Four.pdf
Src 2: https://academic.oup.com/ps/article/93/11/2920/2730497