Chicken Tender App

Chicken Tender is a smart app that automates your chicken coop—manage doors, lights, feeding, and monitor chickens with AI cameras and RFID, all from your phone. Safer, smarter, stress-free farming.

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🐔 Chicken Tender App

Automating Chicken Coops, One Cluck at a Time

Inspiration

Backyard chicken owners and small farms often face the hassle of managing their coops manually—opening doors at dawn, checking food, monitoring health, and protecting hens at night. We wanted to create a smart, low-maintenance system to automate these routines and give peace of mind to chicken keepers.

What it does

Chicken Tender is a smart coop management app that automates:

  • Door control (auto open/close with sunrise/sunset or schedule)
  • Feeding cycles with adjustable timers
  • Lighting and heat lamps
  • Camera-based chicken monitoring with AI tracking
  • RFID chicken ID tags for attendance and health checks

Users receive real-time updates and alerts through the mobile app, keeping their flock safe and healthy.

How we built it

  • Frontend: React Native + Expo for a smooth mobile experience
  • Backend: Supabase for real-time data and authentication
  • Hardware Integration: ESP32 microcontrollers controlling servos, lights, and feeders
  • Computer Vision: Custom Python models for chicken counting using YOLOv8
  • RFID: Integrated 13.56 MHz readers with tag logging via UART
  • Cloud Sync: Supabase functions with background sync for data consistency

Challenges we ran into

  • Fine-tuning chicken detection accuracy in various lighting conditions
  • Synchronizing hardware actions with cloud schedules
  • Designing a UI that’s simple for farmers yet powerful enough for advanced settings
  • Battery management for solar-powered setups

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Seamless automation of routine coop operations
  • Real-time camera and RFID-based chicken tracking
  • Creating a plug-and-play IoT setup anyone can install
  • Building a cross-platform app in record time

What we learned

  • Hardware-software sync is hard, but worth it
  • Chicken behavior is oddly predictable (which helped train our model)
  • Farmers value reliability over flashy features
  • Simplicity wins—especially in rural tech environments

What's next for Chicken Tender App

  • Add voice commands with Alexa/Google integration
  • Deploy solar-charged power modules
  • Launch a Pro version with egg count tracking & coop analytics
  • Expand to other livestock management systems
# Sample Python snippet for RFID scan logging
def log_tag(tag_id, time):
    print(f"Chicken {tag_id} entered at {time}")

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