Okay, Homesteading is great, but once in awhile you've just got to get away and go somewhere sunny. Also, what do you do with the ankle-biters if you want to go somewhere for a week, just you and your spouse?

When you leave for your trip, how do you handle taking care of all of your animals and such? We've tried having a college student come and house sit for us, but sometimes it's difficult to find one that's willing to slop hogs or haul water through the snow to the horse.

Do you have any creative ways to help your animals survive for a week without you? Any auto-feeding gadgets that would make Bill Gates jealous? I'd like to hear any ideas that you have.

-- Chuck (woah@mission4me.com), January 31, 2002

Answers

Chuck, Got a good neighbor you can exchange chores with? That's how we handle the livestock part. What about family for the kids? Ours go to my folks or my sisters if we want a date. Also maybe a family member can come stay and care for the children!! We prefer that the most, but our children are getting old enough to do all the chores, and the person staying is just there to care & protect them. We have lots of fellow countrysiders for support here in southern Michigan. I wouldn't trust a gadget, I worry about my stock enough when we're gone!!! There is one more thing we've done, stayed at a wonderful couples retreat for the weekend in our county and ran home for the chores once a day.....some of the crazy things people do......

-- Suzanne (weir@frontiernet.net), January 31, 2002.

I should clarify that we live in MD, and our closest family is in WI and TX. Also, our neighbors are 1/3 mile away, and I'm not sure I'd trust them with our stuff, if they'd even agree to do it. So those aren't options. We have always found a way, but I'm interested in finding new ideas.

-- chuck in md (woah@mission4me.com), January 31, 2002.

Vacation? Whats that?

-- Kate henderson (kate@sheepyvalley.com), January 31, 2002.

Vacation. That's where you take time off? Where you are away from the farm? Oh, yes, I've heard of them. Never took one. :)

-- Jennifer L. (Northern NYS) (jlance@nospammail.com), January 31, 2002.

I'm always on vacation when I'm on the homestead. I only do what I enjoy and I enjoy it all from making hay, putting out my garden,trimming hoofs, to cleaning sheaths. Vacation is where you find happiness and I have it all here. I hope everybody could experience this once. If they only knew what they are missing. I'm just one blessed person. Countryside forever!!!!!!

-- Herb (hwmil@aol.com), January 31, 2002.

Vacation? What's that! When you have animals, there are no vacations. Who's qualified to take your place for a week or longer? My brother and sister both have farms of their own and they can't leave to take care of mine, exactly.

-- matt johnson (wyo_cowboy_us@yahoo.com), January 31, 2002.

Do you know any 4-H or FFA kids in your area who'd be interested in earning extra money? They would at least have a clue....

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), January 31, 2002.

I haven't taken a week off away from the farm in a long time, but when we do take two to three days off we have the following:

Grown farm raised daughter who comes by daily to feed dogs, horses and check on chicken's water. She also feeds donkey boy, goatie goat, and geeses.

But to ease everything - we use: automatic waterers for large livestock (so all she has to do is check the water, but doesn't have to lug any) and we use automatic 5 gallon feeders for the chickens. They are the hanging type and we use pellets mixed with scratch feed. We tell her that all the eggs she gathers, she gets to keep! We also use 5 gallon waterers for the chickens. The geese have a half barrel that they can only stick their heads in (not whole body) sitting right outside their cattlepanel fence. They don't foul the water that way and daughter doesn't have to haul water. She does have to give them their half scoop of scratch though. Rabbit has an automatic feeder which holds l pound of pellets and she has an automatic 1 gallon chicken water (never used by chickens but great for the bunny). We fill every waterer up and check all auto waterers that use hoses before we leave. We provide a huge roll of hay for the horses in their hay feeder, so daughter doesn't have to haul hay. We know one roll of hay lasts 7 days here. She does have to carry the 2 flakes to the donkey daily and does have to feed the horses, donkey and goat their grain. But we've made it so easy that she can do everything in less than one hour. and she gets paid for doing it. She says the chickens and the dogs are the hardest, as she actually has to make sure to get all the eggs and the dogs have to be fed individually.

As far as child is concerned, only my MOM keeps the boychild. That's the payment she gets for being so close to us (ha!). I have always been kind of leery of non relatives (and even some relatives that are so-so) keeping my children. We sometimes take my son with us on short weekend trips, but for the "just the two of us" trips, MOM does it. She'd freak if we let anyone else keep him as he cuts her grass, takes out trash and gets her groceries in. In return, he gets to stay up late, watch trash tv, and eat whatever he wants.

-- Cindy (colawson@mindspring.com), January 31, 2002.

We haven't found a good solution. Our best solution is to take separate vacations. I take the kids away with a friend and her kids and hubby gets a break from us all but takes care of the critters. Then occassionally hubby will watch the kids while I go away with a girlfriend for the weekend. Hubby doesn't really like vacations - so this works for us. Occassionally we'll go away overnight somewhere - hubby, the kids and I and the critters are okay. In the past we have also paid a pet sitter but that gets expensive.

-- Anita in NC (anitaholton@mindspring.com), January 31, 2002.

I think that, as mentioned earlier, 4H or FFA students would be your best bet. If you put forth the effort to meet a few families who have children in these programs you may be able to arrange swapping animal care, etc. As for the children, is there any way to arrange a child- care swap with a reliable, trusted family? I'm sure there are others who would like an occassional mini vacation, but also don't know who to trust with their children.

-- Dianne Wood - Woodland, WA (woodgoat@pacifier.com), January 31, 2002.

Take mini vacations . That is vacations that are a day long.When you have stock you probably will worry about them and not enjoy yourself anyway.No one can take care of your stock like you can and the animals know that. If you have hired help and they are good that is close to a miracle. I think the idea of a neighbor buddy system is great but it is hard to find that type of situation and it could also cause bad feelings especially if something gets sick or dies. If there is something you just cannot miss go separately. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder? Good luck, Terry

-- Terry Lipe (elipe@fidnet.com), January 31, 2002.

We have a neighbor who I knew when growing up. She even babysat my kids when I had to work. Her and her two kids have watched our animals when we are gone. Her parents live next door to her and will help in a pinch. The neat thing is that they know stock. (At this time only horses here are theirs!) I always make sure there is plenty of feed available and phone numbers. I leave a brief description of what ever animals are here, and vets number. I also give her a signed notorized statement that if unable to reach us, she can authorize putting down an animal. We felt this was important as at one time we had several older horses. I also make sure no animals are due to give birth! ( as familair as she is with the animals she can't stand newborn rabbits, remind her of rats!) I leave a list in the barn as to who gets what.(even for the rabbits) The most important thing though is I insist on paying her!! She would gladly do this as a friend, but I know money is tight raising 2 kids by herself. So I always budget that as part of the "vacation" Denise

-- Denise K. (Rabbitmom2@webbworks.com), February 01, 2002.

Forgot one thing. I always leave her a statement also that I am responsible for any vet bills that my animals run up while she is watching them. This way if need be she can get the vet out. (vet knows me too) Denise K.

-- Denise K. (Rabbitmom2@webbworks.com), February 01, 2002.

Hi Chuck!

We had some friends where we last lived who had several hundred chickens, 2 dogs, many rodents (both mice and rabbits),and a snake. We did chores for them everyday for 10 days and then they came and took care of our critters while we went on vacation. We had most of our animals on auto systems, auto water for the goats, a 5 gal bucket with a gravity feed system to a chicken waterer, a large manger for goat hay and a big self feeder for the chickens. The cat also had a big dish of water and food (she used to mooch off the neighbors regularly anyway. Basically the friends had to come every third day and check on the water and fill up the feed. We only had about 7 chickens and 7 goats. The goats had a little door out to pasture from the barn and the chickens just stayed in their varmit proof half of the barn.

We are now wondering if we will be able to ever go away again. We now have 12 goats, a pig, 2 cats 9 chickens 13 ducks and a puppy dog. My hubby is working on an automatic door opener for the chicken coop. Shouldn't be too much of a problem for him, it just isn't high priority at the moment. The goats and pig are already on self feeder and watering systems and the felines fend well for themselves, which leaves the puppy dog. I guess she can go along or to a kennel and then we can find someone willing to come fill feeders every few days, alert the neighbor to any straying animals and offer in exchange to water thier plants when they are away. Maybe there is a business in here somewhere. Chores R US or something! Still have to work out some of the details! Darlene

-- Darlene in W WA (tomdarsavy@cs.com), February 01, 2002.

Living in the sunbelt is like always being on vacation. Never did like long vacations. Taking the mounts somewhere to ride for 2-5 days is my best getaway. There's only been a couple of times I had to leave for a week (not a vacation).

With a large amount of livestock, it's never been a problem. Never used a 'baby' sitter. The livestock aren't penned nor stalled at any time and have plenty of acreage to roam. I free feed and have automatic waterers.

The dogs in the house have a doggy door and plenty of feed is available. I've done this for many, many years.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2222@hotmail.com), February 02, 2002.

Hi,

Rogo - you sound as if you live somewhere that I would love to live! The only way to get a ride in 2-5 days is to haul 5 hours north to the national park. There are no other places to ride that long around here as everyone fences their land...and now that my neighbor died, I can no longer ride the draft mare on his 400 acres. So that leaves the side of the road, or hauling.

How I envy those who live close to a national forest or out west..

-- Cindy (colawson@mindspring.com), February 02, 2002.

Can't help you with finding kid sitters, but, we hire out the farm work to young adults or teenagers that are preferably homeschooled so they can come during the day to do chores, we pay 20 dollars a day so that gives the needed incentive to do a good job.

Ask a 4-H representative to help in finding a likely applicant and try them out for a weekend or two first, before disappearing for a week. Make huge lists of chores, and make sure all are done as you wish exactly. Have someone come unannounced to check on their work. Trust nothing to chance.

There are no ways or means to self serve the animal care for more than overnight, not with horses anyway, colic can happen and kill in over that time frame, it is not worth the risk.

I often go away overnight and back the next day, do morning chores and leave, back before evening chores the next day, I have heated water bowls and the like to prevent the water freezing up, and put out more than enough hay for the horses, etc., the critters all do fine. If it is very cold ( below 15 degrees), I have the neighbor check on all critters, especially the tied out dogs, just to make sure they can still access their doghouses and are not tangled in any way, and put out more hay in the morning.

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), February 02, 2002.