Mother Hen™

Smart monitoring for your coop’s doors, openings, and atmosphere

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Why it matters

Automatic coop doors sometimes fail — and predators can wipe out a flock overnight. Mother Hen™ watches your coop’s doors, openings, and atmosphere — and tells you the moment something is wrong.

Key features

Install requirement: Your coop needs one 110V outlet. The source is up to you — grid, solar with an inverter, or generator all work fine.
Built to grow. Today Mother Hen reports coop temperature alongside door and opening status. The platform is built to expand — additional environmental signals are part of the roadmap.

How it works

Coop Controller

A weather-resistant unit that lives in your coop. It reads the position of your existing automatic chicken door, reads each BTS-MP1 sensor, and connects to the cloud over cellular to send alerts. Mother Hen does not open or close your door — it watches the one you already have.

Mother Hen system overview diagram

BTS-MP1 opening + temperature sensor

A small magnetic sensor that mounts on any opening — doors, windows, nest box lids, hatches, or run gates — and reports open/closed state along with coop temperature at that location. It can also be deployed in temperature-only mode (on an interior wall, near a roost, or inside a brooder) when you just want a coop temperature reading. Add more as your coop grows.

The Egg (indoor indicator)

A small indoor light and buzzer for your home. Green by day, blue by night, flashing red with a squawk if there’s trouble. Up to 16 Eggs per coop.

The Egg indoor indicator showing its green status light

Customer portal

A web-based customer portal at mother-hen.com lets you see door and temperature status in real time, customize alerts, manage SMS recipients, and review history. Works in any modern browser — no app to install.

Works with the door you already own

Reliability built in

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about Mother Hen™.

Status & availability

Mother Hen™ is a working prototype with two live beta deployments — one in Tennessee and one in Colorado. We’re on a direct-sales path to launch at Sunbelt Ag Expo in Georgia in October 2026. We’ll also be at the Homestead Festival in June 2026 (visitor-only, recruiting additional beta testers).

We’re not taking orders yet. If you want to be on the waitlist, email tennis@svwllc.com and we’ll keep you posted.

For the tech-minded

About

Mother Hen™ is built by Smith Varmint Works LLC in Tennessee. Founded by a retired Silicon Valley engineer, we’re building a complete environmental and security monitoring system for backyard flocks, starting with the things that kill chickens most often: predators, power loss, and extreme temperature.

Contact: tennis@svwllc.com