By now you’ve seen almost anything Tweet. But have you seen the (French) twittering chicken coop? (Google translate link) [Hugo] had kept two chickens as part of a household-waste reduction campaign, and then afterward started work.
Even if you don’t read French, the chickens’ twitter feed basically tells the story.
The setup can take IR photographs of sleeping chickens and notify [Hugo] when it’s time to collect the eggs. Naturally, an abundance of other sensors are available. The coop can tweet based on ambient temperature, nest temperature, light level, motion sensor status, or the amount of remaining chicken feed. You can easily follow whether the two fowl are in the coop or out in the yard. It’s like Big Brother, only for birds.
The application is, frankly, ridiculous. But if you’re into home (or coop) automation, there’s a lot to be learned and the project is very well documented. [Hugo] used OpenCV for visual egg detection, and custom Python code to slightly randomize the tweets’ text. All of these details are up on his Github account.
And if you just can’t get enough chicken-coop hacks, be sure to check out this mobile chicken coop, this coop in the shape of a golden spiral, or this Bluetooth-enabled, talking chicken coop, among others. You’d think our name was Coop-a-Day.
Not at all ridiculous. If you have chooks in the backyard, and work a 9-5, you want to make sure they are locked up safely before dusk (because that’s when foxes are more active). Rather than simply automating the opening and closing of the door, why not check that there are actually chickens in the coop at the time?
How long until the chickens start retweeting Kim Kardashian’s latest brainfart?
Can’t wait for the stop-motion movie to be released in 2015!
Poulet live the life, unlike their sisters in the mega-coops.
Where is the solar panel to power this?