Farm Sitting

If you travel, you need to find a farm sitter you can trust!

I can leave lots of food and water out for the flock but I don't have an automatic door to let them into the chicken run in the morning and that would close after dark - after all the birds are in the pen. I also have the growing chicks who don't know how to get back in if they fly out!

Here's the little door that opens into the chicken run. If they all come out, I'll count them. Currently there's 7 big ones and 8 smaller. At night - after dark - I check that they've all come into the pen before closing the little door.

These are the doors to access the nesting boxes. I have some fake eggs in there, so don't harvest them, lol. Anything else is for sitters to take. There don't be any in the am but at least four at night.

In the morning I lightly rake the sand in the pen, moving large debris into a pile I remove every couple days.

I scoop poop from under the roosts inside the hen house using a large kitty litter scooper. Scoop, shake back and forth and then dump into a lidded poop can. The lids help keep smells down and the flies away. Lids also keep our dog from eating it!

They say 50% of their poop happens at night! This stuff is also awesome for my gardens.

I use cotter pins to keep the coop latches from being opened by racoons….

In the pen, there are currently three water sources and two hanging feeders. That way the big ones don't keep the littles from getting access. The feed storage can is in there and the blue scoop hangs up by the roof, near the pail of scratch. There's an extra water jug on the shelf and I keep the construction fan blowing when it's hot. An oyster shell dish hangs on the pen wall so they can take some if they need it.

We let them out into the yard when we're home but prefer they stay in the run when we're not. Sometimes if you're very still, they might decide you're a nice perch :)

And some random photos…

Morning Routine video https://youtu.be/fDjL9eiWRAw