Question about going away on vacation

[moonflowers]

My husband and I will be leaving to visit his family for a few days. We'll leave Friday night and return Sunday evening. We have 7 chicks which will be 9 weeks old when we go out in the coop and 3 that will be 4.5 weeks old. The question I have is will they be okay locked up in their coop while we are gone?
I have someone coming over to fill their food and water Saturday night but I don't want them to have to come over Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night, and Sunday morning. My chicks naturally go into their coop at night when it gets dark and are ready to come out in the morning when the sun comes up (they wait by the little door for one of us to let them out). I am going back and forth on whether or not just to leave their little coop door open that goes into their run but know it is safer to keep them in their coop even though the run is covered. Any opinions on what would be best for them?

 

[ChickenToes]

I would try to find someone who could lock them up at night and let them out in the morning. I know it's a pain in the butt, but it's so worth it to keep your birds safe.

 

[Mahlzeit]

I would just leave them in their coop for those couple of days. It won't do them any harm. Better to keep them safely locked up than to leave the door open where something can get them

 

[Mahonri]

Quote:
That's what I was thinking... feeder and waterer(s) full before you leave.

 

[GoldenSilverLaced]

I would put excess food and water, just in case...last week I was on vacation and my (now former) petsitter didn't feed or provide fresh water for my chickens for at least a day, if not more. They had nothing and their mini-run is covered with shavings so they couldn't even get to any grass. I was/am incredibly ticked.

 

[Judy]

Yeah, I believe I'd leave them in. They won't be happy, but it won't hurt them, and they sure will be glad to see you!

 

[terri9630]

Quote:
Why do you have shavings over the grass? I'm sure if they were hungry enough they would dig through the shavings to get the grass, but I agree. We went to the lake and the neighbour was supposed to feed my horses. 3 days with nothing.....

 

[GoldenSilverLaced]

We have a coop contained in a mini-run with hardware cloth on all sides, including the bottom, to prevent critters from digging under the girls' area. We originally thought that the grass would grow in between the hardware cloth, but what really happened was that the grass was totally matted down. Then the girls, being chickens, pooped on it, making what little grass there was unsuitable for their consumption. Hence for cleanliness, we put shavings down there in addition to inside the coop so that we can clean it up more easily. At this point, there isn't any grass left under there.

We put them out in a travel cage (a large dog cage also covered with hardware cloth, except that the bottom is not covered with the cloth) most days for 8-12 hours (unless the weather is bad or we are traveling). This enables them to have access to fresh grass (we have wheels on the back so that we can move it to different locations every day). I also let the girls out to roam free in the yard for 1-2 hours most days when I am home and outside so that they can explore and find worms, etc. We live in town and rent the house we live in, so we are limited in the amount of space that we could use for the girls. As we only have 2 pullets, size-wise it is ok. Although it is limited, they do have enough room to move about and walk in the coop/mini-run and in the cage. They enjoy roaming free and are very well behaved usually.

I'm sorry about your horses not getting fed for 3 days, that is a really long time. I hope they are ok.

If someone if advertising themselves as a petsitter (and in my case, a future vet!) then one would think that they had common sense and compassion.

 

[moonflowers]

That is CRAZY, how horrible, how could ANYONE have so little compassion for an animal? I am so sorry that happened. Thanks for all the advice. I will just fill up their 3 gallon waterer and 7 pound feeder and put it in there with the 8 weekers. I think I might just keep the 3 weekers in their brooder a bit longer and integrate them when we get back so I can give them the 2 gallon waterer and 2nd 7 pound feeder. I think that should hold them over in case the person I asked to feed them doesn't show.
Any ideas that I could put in the coop to keep them entertained?

 

[GoldenSilverLaced]

You could tie a head of cabbage/lettuce, or maybe just a few leaves (since they are still rather small) from the top of their cage, and let them go after it like a pinata. Or give them something to eat that will take them a long time to finish, like hard bread crust, if they are able to eat that at that age. I didn't give mine any treats til they were grown, so I am not overly familiar with what chicks can and can't have. Maybe a mirror, if it wouldn't scare them?

What's even better is that the petsitter's wife (the vet-in-training, technically; her husband was the petsitter usually) came by the house in the middle of the day and then went back home and told him that the chickens had no food...BUT DIDN'T FEED THEM. I found this out because a good friend of mine went by the house just to check in on all the animals (she has a house key but no garage key...which will soon be remedied) and found them unfed (the chickens, whose food is in the garage) and in the dark, still covered, also unfed (my parakeet). This is at 12:30 PM. She took care of the animals as best as possible, and then returned at 10:30 PM that night to see if anyone bothered to show up...and ran into the petsitter coming into the house and made him explain what was going on. So no one would have taken care of them until rather late at night if my friend had not intervened. She went back again the next day just to make sure everything was still ok, luckily it was. Horrible. I was in tears that night out of frustration and worry, after celebrating my sister's graduation. We are so lucky to have such good friends.