Would you hire a chicken sitter?

[451757]

I would rather hire someone like you that understands the importance of proper care instead of a neighbor kid.
Have you looked into what types of pet sitting services exist in your area and what they charge? I’m sure different areas would have different price ranges.

I have and no one offers anything in my area; at least not an actual business that pulls up on Google. Maybe they do word of mouth but I'm hoping there's a market for it so I can create a full time, successful business working with animals.

 

[PirateGirl]

Consider different pricing based on kind of animal vs number of animals too. Just saying up to 24 animals is a bit vague. 24 dogs vs 24 goats vs 24 chickens is a big difference is the time/effort you need to put in. Also are you ok with taking home only $12 a day for two trips 30 miles from your home? That’s 120 miles of driving in a day plus your time spent actually caring for the animals.

 

[451757]

Consider different pricing based on kind of animal vs number of animals too. Just saying up to 24 animals is a bit vague. 24 dogs vs 24 goats vs 24 chickens is a big difference is the time/effort you need to put in. Also are you ok with taking home only $12 a day for two trips 30 miles from your home? That’s 120 miles of driving in a day plus your time spent actually caring for the animals.

Perhaps I need to create a price sheet for every scenario I can think of; prices for chicken/other poultry sitting, prices for goat/pig sitting, prices for cats, for dogs and so on. Of course, if someone has a mix of everything then it'll be tricky. Honestly, I would rather pocket more than $12 at the end of the day but I'm worried about charging too much. Maybe I do need to price according to number of visits. Hopefully people won't balk at the prices

 

[townchicks]

I hire a petsitter for all my animals, dogs, cat, chickens and doves. I live in the burbs, though. It sounds as though your prospective clients would be farm folks, however. It might be a good idea to get more experience with the larger animals, maybe volunteer to help at a farm in exchange for learning about care. I will say, I am very picky about who I hire, pretty much everyone I've used has been a retired vet tech. I don't hire teens who "love dogs" and want a summer job. I expect them to have enough experience to recognize a problem early, and enough confidence to say I'm going to the vet for this, it's more than I can handle. They need to be someone who can medicate a fractious cat, break up a dogfight, shovel poop, and take a hard peck from a hen. This is not to say you can't, just to give you an idea of expectations.

 

[451757]

I hire a petsitter for all my animals, dogs, cat, chickens and doves. I live in the burbs, though. It sounds as though your prospective clients would be farm folks, however. It might be a good idea to get more experience with the larger animals, maybe volunteer to help at a farm in exchange for learning about care. I will say, I am very picky about who I hire, pretty much everyone I've used has been a retired vet tech. I don't hire teens who "love dogs" and want a summer job. I expect them to have enough experience to recognize a problem early, and enough confidence to say I'm going to the vet for this, it's more than I can handle. They need to be someone who can medicate a fractious cat, break up a dogfight, shovel poop, and take a hard peck from a hen. This is not to say you can't, just to give you an idea of expectations.

Luckily, aside from the larger animals, I have experience with everything else you mentioned.

 

[christwodog]

Yes I would hire a chicken/animal sitter - some things I would not expect to pay a bargain rate for, such as someone caring for my animals. So I would not have a problem paying for quality care. I currently use my neighbor's teenage daughter to watch my chickens, but they have chickens of their own and she is very responsible. But if I didn't have this situation to fall back on, I would search out a chicken sitter definitely!

One thing I would try to do is to actually visit the home/farm before quoting a price - some people have their animal's areas super clean and user friendly, others not so much.
If there's no close, easily accessible water source and you are stuck lugging 5 gal buckets of water for 10 horses, that could be quite a chore! Hence, higher price! Good luck!

 

[PirateGirl]

Perhaps I need to create a price sheet for every scenario I can think of; prices for chicken/other poultry sitting, prices for goat/pig sitting, prices for cats, for dogs and so on. Of course, if someone has a mix of everything then it'll be tricky. Honestly, I would rather pocket more than $12 at the end of the day but I'm worried about charging too much. Maybe I do need to price according to number of visits. Hopefully people won't balk at the prices

you can always lower the prices later or give a discount for something, but it will be hard to raise prices later... if it was me I'd make a spreadsheet with everything i can think of and a price and then when a client calls, ask a bunch of questions and add up their daily rate (or trip rate) or even just a total for their whole time away... people who own animals know that they need to pay someone to care for them when out of town. I think the last professional sitter I had, quoted me $60 a day for 2 dogs, 2 cats, and 10 chickens/ducks. Also look at the price of boarding a dog in a kennel. I'd probably pay $25 (or more) a day per dog to board them, so if my total to have someone care for all my animals comes out equal or less than the price to just board my dogs, I come out ahead financially.

 

[PirateGirl]

multi-day discount (5th day free or something)
1/2 day rate for the day they come home
repeat client discount
if an existing client refers you a new client you can give a referral discount on their next trip
free plant care if they have more than one animal
senior citizen discount
a discount if they are less than 5 miles from your house
a discount if all the roads are paved and you don't have to drive down washboard roads

You really can make up anything you want if the total price is too high and you have blown their budget.

 

[townchicks]

Parceling out your pricing is way too complicated. Scooping litter boxes and picking up dog poop is basic daily care, just as cleaning stalls would be for horses. My petsitter and everyone else that I know, includes bringing in mail. I don't ask my sitter to water plants, but many I've talked to include that. I think you are best served by picking a basic price per day. Figure out about how much time it will take to do most things, and how much you want to make per hour. Add milage to that if it outside a predetermined area. Maybe have one price for homes that only have household pets like dogs or cats, and an additional charge for farm animals. After you've done it for a few times, you can adjust your price if you find it is not worth your while.Some petsitter charge per visit, if someone just wants once a day, to check on animals and refill dishes, that can be less than 2 or 3 visits. Prices will vary depending on area, it's pricy here, so I pay my sitter $60 a day, that's for overnight, for 2 dogs, a cat, two cages of doves and the chickens. Bunnies too, back when I had them. One thing that jumps out at me, if people have chickens that need to be let out, how early are you planning to be there? Can you be there at dusk to safely lock them up, without leaving your flock hanging around in the dark? Same if cows need to be milked, dogs need to go potty, etc. Seems like you will have to drive some, to get to your clients, so that makes it a pretty early start to the day. That's why I have someone who will overnight, so my dogs are not crossing their legs until someone arrives in the am.

 

[451757]

Parceling out your pricing is way too complicated. Scooping litter boxes and picking up dog poop is basic daily care, just as cleaning stalls would be for horses. My petsitter and everyone else that I know, includes bringing in mail. I don't ask my sitter to water plants, but many I've talked to include that. I think you are best served by picking a basic price per day. Figure out about how much time it will take to do most things, and how much you want to make per hour. Add milage to that if it outside a predetermined area. Maybe have one price for homes that only have household pets like dogs or cats, and an additional charge for farm animals. After you've done it for a few times, you can adjust your price if you find it is not worth your while.Some petsitter charge per visit, if someone just wants once a day, to check on animals and refill dishes, that can be less than 2 or 3 visits. Prices will vary depending on area, it's pricy here, so I pay my sitter $60 a day, that's for overnight, for 2 dogs, a cat, two cages of doves and the chickens. Bunnies too, back when I had them. One thing that jumps out at me, if people have chickens that need to be let out, how early are you planning to be there? Can you be there at dusk to safely lock them up, without leaving your flock hanging around in the dark? Same if cows need to be milked, dogs need to go potty, etc. Seems like you will have to drive some, to get to your clients, so that makes it a pretty early start to the day. That's why I have someone who will overnight, so my dogs are not crossing their legs until someone arrives in the am.

Thanks for all the suggestions! I've got my pricing work cut out for me. My hours are very flexible with the exception of 2 days a week, Tuesday and Thursday, when I have a morning class from 10-11:40. Aside from that I can work around my client's schedule. I want to be as fair as possible while making sure that my expenses are covered as well. I want to be as full service as I can be and would love to add cows and horses to my list of services one day. I wish I could now because my county is full of them but I don't have much experience with them. I can follow an owner's instructions to a T though if I decided to go ahead and include them. Thoughts?