How do you vacation when you have chickens?

[Chicken.Lytle]

I need to travel a loooooooooooooooooong way by car, do some stuff, and come a loooooooooooooooooong way back. I am very worried about my flock while I am away.

How do you take a vacation? Who watches the chickens? What needs to be done? Do you have a checklist? Are there any things you have to tell someone NOT to do?

I have a plan, but I am worried that I have missed something important.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

Never had a vacation.. read about them though, they sound nice!

 

[Illia]

Umm. . . I let the rest of the fam take the vacation and stay here with my babies.

Seriously I wouldn't trust someone else to watch 'em.

Course, if you have a safe coop and predator proof run, and provide a feeder and waterer with plenty there, and have nesting boxes with plenty room. . . You're all set.

 

[LaurelRidgeDreams]

This is a real issue for me too. Not just for the chickens, we have horses, dogs, and cats. I had to figure this out two years ago when my mother was dying with Cancer.

Responsible high school students have taken care of our animals. A local 4H club could possibly help you find such a person. We pay them well.

 

[schmije]

If we're just gone for a weekend, we'll top off the food and water and leave them alone. We may notify a neighbor that we'll be gone, so they'll keep an eye out for anything unusual. If we'll be gone for longer, we have a friend who comes by twice a day to let them out, close them up and keep them fed and watered. He lives very close, and he's happy to do it for the free eggs. I always leave multiple contact numbers taped to the wall in both of our coops. I can add any special instructions to these notes. He also feeds our barn cat. The dogs go with us.

The high school FFA teacher would be a good place to start if you don't know somebody who can help you.

 

[woodmort]

First of all I'd be darn if I was going to let my chickens or pets prohibit my going away when I wanted to. We now have cats and chickens and don't have a problem whether it be for a couple of days or weeks. For a day or two we just leave enough food and water for both sets of animals and go. Longer periods we hire a pet sitter to come in once a day, feed and water everyone and gather the eggs. During all trips the animals are confined to quarters--cats to the house; chickens to the coop. Back in the day we had a dogs we either took them with us or kenneled them. That's one reason why we don't have dogs anymore--they're too restrictive when we want to up and go for a few days.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Quote:
That is a great idea. I wish we could create some kind of sticky that could have a list by state/city/region of those BYC'ers who are willing to pet sit so that we can use the list to find someone in our local area. That would be a great tool.

 

[OScarlet]

Can you imagine doing that to a child? I really don't see how that is any different. I know they are animals, but they suffer the same nonetheless.

 

[Dar]

I take a vacation every year... sometimes twice a year.

In January we had a pet sitter come in. She never seen a live chicken before, BUT that was our plus she was so interested in learning that she was great! this was an older retired woman who ran a pet sitting business in her golden years. this last time I went away my mom was here because the kids were here (vaca just for me and hubby)

if its just chickens and no other animals that require more work they are easy. If you have other animals that may complicate the situation. I would say its ok its a simple enough job

How long are you going for? could you just top up their food and water and leave them they should be good for 2 days now that the weather is cooler. It wont hurt them to stay cooped up while you are gone.

Because I live in a colder climate, If the temp drops below -20*C with the wind chill my girls dont go out i leave them in the coop with a few extra treats like a cabbage on a string and they are fine

 

[Keara]

You need a neighbor with chickens you can trust.

Mostly one of us stays home while the othes go on a trip. We are planning a big trip in a year for the shole family.... I don't know yet what to do with 2 horses 20+ chickens, a dog, 2 cats, and some fish! What ever we do it will end up being expensive, as we plan to be gone 2 weeks.