How to Travel with Animals at Home
Trying to plan a vacation can be tedious already…and then you remember you have a barnyard full of animals outside.
Traveling when you have animals at home can be done and it will be done or else you will be stuck to your home your entire life. GET OUT AND TRAVEL, even if its just one small trip a year.
There is more out there than those fields, the grass outside your window, and the blue sky above ya.
Now don’t get me wrong, those views are beautiful and I wouldn’t trade this life for anything, but the beach and the mountains are calling!
We don’t have a full farm, we just have a small homestead but sometimes that can be more difficult than several fields of cattle.
Planning Ahead
I am the queen of work smarter not harder (well at least i’d like to think so), so we already use these tactics on a daily basis so it is super helpful to already have these in place, but for those who don’t.
For livestock:
FIRST -find somebody that can go check on your animals at least twice while you’re gone, IF somebody can’t just stay at your house the entire time you’re gone.
SECOND -figure out how you’re going to feed them everyday without having to walk outside and feed them. This is easier said than done, sometimes it just isn’t possible. For instance: you can build a 55-gallon drum for your chickens and they will be fine for multiple weeks, but if you have a baby goat or calf that needs bottle fed you obviously have to make their bottle and hand feed them several times a day. Cattle and goats can graze on a large pasture for several days without having to be rotated.
THIRD -figure out your water situation. You could have several buckets of water spread throughout your pasture or pen, or you could have a couple large water tanks. You should know about how much water your animals go through a day and/or a week, so make sure that they have enough water without someone having to fill it up.
FORTH -make sure you have an emergency kit set up and instructions for what to do in any kind of emergency. Also have your local vet’s contact information available for the person watching your animals. Anything can happen and you can only prepare for emergencies so much. Obviously if you know that your livestock will give birth soon you should probably not plan your vacation for that time.
FIFTH -fix the fence! We all know that animals will somehow manage to get out and let me tell ya it’s a hassle to get them back in, especially if they aren’t really fond of humans. Walk your fence line several times and check for any possible way they could escape. We also make sure the bird netting over top of the chicken run is in tact so that nothing can get in and they can’t fly out.
Needless to say, vacations are still possible when you have lots of animals or a full garden.
Just breathe, plan ahead, pray hard, and have fun.
