Caution: Chicken Crossing

Before we put up the plywood on the inside of the coop, I wanted to come up with an inventive way to open and close the pop door that allows the chickens to get out to the "playpen".  I didn't want to spend $100+ on an expensive door opener, so we headed to Home Depot to see what we could cobble together and ended up with an expensive set of 16" drawer glides.  Think of a drawer mounted standing up with the front on the bottom sill of the wall like so (picture taken looking down at the closed door):

The glides are mounted fully extended so, when the door opens, it moves along the glides that are mounted to the wall studs.  We placed a piece of 2x4 between the studs right above where the door lands when it is open.  That will prevent critters\bugs\etc. from trying to get up into the enclosed walls.  Here's another pic from the side:

Later, we'll  put an eye bolt on the outside of the door and run a wire from it to the front of the coop so that you can manually open and close the door.  Yeah, it's not automated to open or close on a timer, but cost less then $3.  I can live with that.

Ingeniously yours,