hiring help

Wasn't really sure where I should put this. Anyway- we are going out of town for 4 days (in about a month). My MIL is coming to house sit. Its not the first time she has done it but in the past year she has had 3 hand surgeries for trigger finger and a knee surgery for a meniscus tear (I think that is what it was for). Her knee is still hurting her and the doc thinks there may be an additional tear or injury that may require surgery as well. The surgery would happen after our trip. She is currently doing ok wearing a brace. She says she still plans on coming but I have doubts of whether or not she will be able to handle it alone. BIL will come spend a day with her. We were thinking to ask our neighbor kids for help. Our coop is a walk in, raised coop. The step up is high and I think it would be difficult even without a knee injury for MIL. SO we were thinking we would pay the kids (9, 13 and 14) to come over twice day to carry feed and water buckets for MIL. They would need to put the food in the coop and just carry and dump the water for at least the chickens. If the weather is still really cold they would need to carry a bucket of water to the ducks and geese twice a day too. MIL was thinking she would be able to use the water hose for them but I think it will still be too cold. So how much would you pay the kids? We're talking an hour total per day, the buckets are just under 2 gallons so a bit heavy. They would need to do 3 buckets of water a day and 2 buckets of food. MIL would be able to do the rest. And it would be nice if they played with the dog a bit but they really like him so playing with him I think will happen any way.

Well, it seems to me that you don't really "need" 3 kids to help... I mean realistically one kid would be more than sufficient, so paying for three is not justified. So I think a reasonable "cost" to you would be about $15 per day for the services of 1 kid or $60 for the 4 days.

So that would work out to $5 per day per child or $20 per child for their help to MIL over the 4 day period. Were it me, I would explain to them the math and that that was my intention, but let THEM decide the split since one or more of them may decide NOT to help out over the 4 day period.

Enjoy your vacation and hope MIL heals up quickly.

A highly variable situation.....really depends on your relationship with these kids and their parents.
I would definitely talk with the parents first to see how they feel about it,
as they may be the 'backup' if there's a problem.

Sounds like if they play with the dog already you know them fairly well?
Maybe they don't need to be paid at all?
Maybe one kid is more interested and/or responsible than the others?

Maybe enlist their help in the next month and see how it goes?

We pay our neighbor kids $10-15 a day depending on what the chore list is for the season. The way they split it is up to them.