What Do You Do If You Leave Town?

[Laurajean]

Quote:
I'm curious about those automatic doors. Do they always go in before it's set to close, every single time? You don't get stragglers that linger outside and miss the door closing?

 

[Buff Hooligans]

Hi Laurajean - you ought to know that the fine print on the order forms for hatcheries states specifically that you are never to leave town again once you are owned by chickens. (The fine print looks suspiciously like chicken scratch, but disregard that...)

 

[Laurajean]

Quote:
Hi!

Yeah, "owned by chickens", isn't that the truth! For once I am thankful for my lack of social life! Right now I don't go anywhere longer than a few hours at best. I live a pretty simple, at home life. But I just know that someday I will get invited to SOMETHING and when that day comes, I wanna be ready, lol.

Does anyone ever lock them in their hen house if they go away for a day or two? With food and water of course. Would that be awful or fine? BTW, I have 7 Banties and the hen house itself is about 4 ft square by 5 feet tall. The run is much larger, but my question is if anyone leaves them closed in the hen house if needed. My run (once completed) will be about 15 x 8, but I wouldn't dare leave them in the run unless I had an automatic door to their house. LOTS of predators here.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Quote:

ditto

 

[Mrs. Green Thumbs]

We left town for an over night excursion to Grandmas house! It was wonderful we asked the neighbor to just come over and check on the girls, took the dog with us and made sure to fill the feeder and water to the tops right before we left and give the girls some treats to enjoy. Came home and refilled the feeder and water dispenser.

 

[PhilErvin]

We just got back from a 5 day trip to a wedding in Texas. I have an automatic waterer and feeder so that part is taken care of. I put out an old metal waterer for back-up just in case and an old metal feeder for back-up too. My Barber wants to incubate some eggs so I asked him to come by every day and pick them up and check that all the girls were happy. I ordinarly let them out of the run during the day but decided to leave them locked in the run while I was gone. They did just fine.

 

[kuntrygirl]

I'm working on an instruction manuel for the kid who lives next door.

 

[PhilErvin]

Quote:
I don't have an automatic door but I would imagine if you're worried about stragglers being left out I would set it to shut well after dark. Predators don't usually come around till long after dark and if the girls aren't in by dark they aren't coming in.

 

[Dar]

I have a fantastic house sitter that comes 5X a day when we are gone

The deal is $50 a day and all the eggs she wants

I have 4 dogs
3cats
Reptiles
And my chickens

 

[Randy]

Quote:

ditto

x3

I can't recall how many years it's been since I've had a day off from the poultry. I'm not allowed to get sick or die either.