No alerts arriving
If something happened at the coop that should have triggered an SMS alert and no SMS arrived, walk through this list in order. The checks are arranged cheapest-first.
1. Are you opted in?
Section titled “1. Are you opted in?”Check your phone for any history of replying STOP to a Mother Hen SMS. If you (or anyone holding the phone) ever sent STOP, your carrier suppresses every future SMS from our number until you explicitly opt back in.
To opt back in, send START to the Mother Hen SMS number. Wait a minute, then try sending the Egg self-test (see Reading the Egg lights) to confirm SMS is flowing again.
2. Is the right number on the Portal?
Section titled “2. Is the right number on the Portal?”Open the Portal → Account → Recipients. Confirm the phone number on file is the one you are actually looking at. A typo — even a one-digit difference — sends alerts to a stranger or to nobody.
If the number is wrong, contact support to correct it.
3. Is the master toggle on?
Section titled “3. Is the master toggle on?”In the Portal under account settings, find the master SMS toggle. Confirm it is on. If it is off, no SMS will be sent regardless of what is happening at the coop.
4. Is the Controller online?
Section titled “4. Is the Controller online?”Open the Portal and look at the Controller’s status. If the Controller is offline, the cloud is not receiving events from the coop and there is nothing to alert about. Jump to Controller offline.
5. Send a test SMS
Section titled “5. Send a test SMS”From the Portal’s account page, press “Send test SMS.” Within about 30 seconds, an SMS should arrive at the phone number on file.
- Test arrives — your alert pipeline is fine. Whatever you expected an alert about may not have crossed an alert threshold, or may have been an event Mother Hen does not flag (see SMS alerts for the list).
- Test does not arrive — escalate to support with the details below.
6. Escalate to support
Section titled “6. Escalate to support”Email support with:
- Your customer number (on the subscription welcome card).
- Your Controller short identifier (visible in the Portal).
- The approximate time of the event you expected an alert about, in your local time with timezone.
- A description of what happened at the coop and what you expected to receive.
We will look at the server-side logs and confirm whether the event was detected, classified, and dispatched, and where it stopped if it did not reach you.
Last updated: 2026-05-14.