What's a little vacation...

One of the reasons I thought chickens and dogs were the only pets I would have is because I thought they would be easy to manage on those rare occasions when we were going on vacation.  The dog typically goes with us on vacation since I rent dog-friendly houses on the beach, and I figured chickens just need a ton of food and water left out and they'd be fine.

That isn't the case, and I realized that within a few days of having all of the birds in the coop.

The chickens have three water dishes outside in the kennel area and one inside the coop.  I clean and fill them each morning and by the afternoon they are disgusting and dirty again.  Each morning I dump a huge scoop of feed for them, and by the afternoon they need more.  They have two big feeders in the coop that last two or three days before I need to put more feed in.  And every night I have to herd them all into the coop and close the door because I am worried about a creature coming to eat them.

When our (new) tradition of a week at the beach was getting closer, I realized I really needed to find someone I could trust to come to the house twice a day to feed the goats and the birds and then to put the birds into the coop at night.  Finding a dog sitter was always hard, this was going to be far worse.

The original plan was that a neighbor was going to come do the first half of the week, and then the girl renting a room in our home would do the second half of the week. 

The first day that we arrived at the beach I received a text message at 7:30, two hours past feeding time, from the renter.  She asked about the animals being fed and said she cleaned and filled their waters because it hadn't been done.  Turns out the neighbor didn't come as promised.  I hated to ask her to help even more, but the renter agreed to take care of the animals for the entire week.

I relaxed because I knew I could trust her....

And then Wednesday came.  The goats were out.  Jenny is about 100 pounds (or more) and does not want people to get near her or touch her.  Kelly is about 30-40 pounds and is also slightly skittish, but not as bad.  And the two were out.

They didn't go far, they know where the food is, so they were just hanging out around the mudroom (where the grain is kept.)

I text a friend that lived a few miles away and he came over to help the renter catch the goats and get them back into the pen.  It was about two hours later that I received word that they had finally managed to get everyone back inside.  They both told me not to apologize, it was a funny story they were ready to tell their friends.  How many people can say they wrangled a goat?

The next morning, they were out again.  The renter got them in on Thursday night, on her own.  Friday morning, they were out again.  I told her to just leave them out, they weren't going anywhere.

We got home from our trip on Saturday evening and all three goats were out by then.  Carrie had managed to tear our screen off the screen door to get into the mud room and when it was raining they all ended up in the mud room. 

Welcome home.

Sunday morning we got out to finish the new goat pen we had been building.  They now have about two-thirds of an acre fenced in for them to graze and enjoy.  The chicken coop and kennel is inside their pen area because I've heard they can help keep other creatures from getting to the birds and I am hoping the guinea will help to keep the ticks away from the goats too. 

It's only a matter of time before the goats get out again.