How do you go on vacation?

Also your animals don't seem excessive. You feed the chickens, and other small animals, they are easy. It is the dogs that would be harder!

We take two vacations a year and 3 trips a year for hockey season (my son) I am lucky I have a good pet sitter.She is really pricy but keeps my animals alive and fed.The problem I have with her is that she works and sometimes she can not make the afternoon visit until late and Mr. fox shows up so we loose some chickens,(now the days she can not make it in time she only feed the chickens and does not let them free range.
I do leave everything in papers all over the house and the barn and lots of explanations on the walls with cards and stickers, I print papers for her to take home and study them and send the same docs to her e.mail so she has it in any kind of form.
She comes twice a day.
I found her in the kennel where I uses to leave my dogs (I ask if she knew of somebody that pet sit and she say she could try) so we tried and works great.
I have about 50 chickens and about 10 ducks, 3 horses, 4 cats, 3 dogs, I am adding 2 goats and a cow this summer.
She even take care of the eggs in the incubator or brooders if i have some.And the best part is that she likes my organization and she fallows it all so when i came back she has filled every paper with dates or number of hatches or missing eggs or missing chickens or things like that.She even puts the dates on the egg when she picks them up and puts them in my book that way is like I never left, of course nobody is gonna do the work like you do so always is something that is not right.
But at least I get to go for holidays.

When we had three dogs, we had the neighbor's high school aged daughter come over and feed them once a day. But we have a securely fenced yard, a huge duplex doghouse and dogs that were used to being outside all day everyday. The outside overnight was like a mini-vacation for them, they got to stay up late and bark with the coyotes. lol

We switched to letting the cats self-feed, so all she had to do was check that the feeder was full. They actually lost weight since then.

What is your feeding schedule like? What care do they need?

The needs aren't too much really but its just hot here. The weather though next weekend is pretty mild thankfully, like 90°. So my stepson needs to feed the dogs every day and give them clean water in their baby pool, we try to fill it daily but its still ok after 2 days. Then the hens and the rabbits have a water and a little baby pool too. But at the moment I'm having to refill the water and food every day for the baby chicks and bunnies that are caged and most worried about them. If they're left unattended completely and get too hot or don't have water at any point they'll die. I'm also putting frozen water jugs in their cage in the afternoon, but its been over 100° right now. I need to keep them cool with less trouble. So that's about it, animals in the run, babies in the 2 cages, and the dogs. No cage cleaning or anything.

What do you guys do if it is just fowl you are worried about? I have 5 chickens and 2 ducks. They are young (not laying yet) and have a sizeable coop. We always go to my fiancee's mom's for a few weekends over the summer because she lives on a private lake with good fishing. We are planning on going for 4th of July for around 5 days. Our dogs come with us, we leave the cats with 2 litter boxes, plenty of food, and tons of water, but what about the chickens and ducks? My fiancee who lived on a farm just says leave them in their coop but for 5 days? I can't imagine. We are new to the area and don't really have ties and we only have one neighbor, but we have never met them.

Any ideas?

wonkyflock14 said:

What do you guys do if it is just fowl you are worried about? I have 5 chickens and 2 ducks. They are young (not laying yet) and have a sizeable coop. We always go to my fiancee's mom's for a few weekends over the summer because she lives on a private lake with good fishing. We are planning on going for 4th of July for around 5 days. Our dogs come with us, we leave the cats with 2 litter boxes, plenty of food, and tons of water, but what about the chickens and ducks? My fiancee who lived on a farm just says leave them in their coop but for 5 days? I can't imagine. We are new to the area and don't really have ties and we only have one neighbor, but we have never met them.

Any ideas?

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If I knew with absolute certainty that they would not run out of water or food, I would probably be comfortable leaving them for a few days, but I am not sure I could leave them for 5 days.... That is a long enough period for them to die of dehydration if they were to run out of water. Crap can happen - waterers can be knocked over or spring a leak, predators can get in, etc.

Is there any way you could hire someone to come check on them while you are gone? I totally understand not knowing anyone local, as we are often in the same predicament. We often call local vet clinics to ask if they know any pet/farm sitters. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. You can also check with feed stores, boarding/lesson stables, etc. I wish there was a good way to look one up online, but it can be difficult. I've used Craigslist before, but checked every reference before hiring.

The probability of hiring someone is very low, but I will check that all out. We may just have to cut the trip a bit short. When we bought them we took on the responsibility of taking care of them, and our fun can't put them at risk. Thanks for the suggestion!