How to Take a Vacation When You Have a Homestead

Hey, pioneers. Welcome to episode number 396. Today's episode, we are going to be talking about how to go on vacation or how to leave your homestead when you have livestock. It has been interesting. I have been sharing some different things on social media and I am seeing where some people keep commenting, "Yeah, but if you have chickens, then you can't ever go anywhere," like you're married to your homestead if you have livestock. And we will get into some of the nuances on depending on what type of livestock you have, how to leave the homestead or how you can do that, but you absolutely can leave your homestead even if you have livestock. And we are preparing to leave, because the Modern Homesteading Conference in Idaho is coming up shortly, which means I'm going to be away from my homestead for almost a full week. So, I'm going to be sharing with you actually when this goes live.

It actually will go live on the first day of the Modern Homesteading Conference. So, I thought I would share with you the things that we are doing right now in order to prepare and things that we have done in the past, et cetera, so that you can use those tips if you have livestock. And they work very well if you're going on vacation or you need to be away from home. I realize sometimes we need to leave our homesteads and leave our home, and it's not necessarily just because of a vacation or something fun. Sometimes it is something that will take you away from work if you still have a day job, or perhaps it's a medical thing where somebody in your family has to have surgery or something, and you need to go along and be there with them, or at some type of emergency where you need to leave the homestead.

But there are definitely things that you can put into place that will allow you... And some of these, I even use quite honestly, if we're in a really busy season of life, and I know we've got some really big things coming up. And it doesn't mean that I necessarily won't be home at night, but I know that I'm not going to be in a place where during the day I can go out and do some of the things that I just do on a regular basis, that I need to almost act like I'm not at home because I'm going to be so heavily involved in doing something else. So, let's get to that. And I think it'd probably be best if we talk a little bit about time of year, as well as the different types of livestock and some of the things that you'll want to do a little bit differently depending on what type of livestock you have.

Now, if you are listening to this the old-fashioned way, it's so funny to say old-fashioned in reference to podcasts, but if you're listening to this on the go, usually an app on our phones or perhaps even on a laptop or computer while doing stuff, you can go to melissaknorris.com/396. That's the number 396, because this is episode number 396. If you are watching this because we now have our episodes on YouTube, then you're seeing this in video format and you will see the link as well beneath the video description if you want to go and check out some of the resources that I'll be mentioning in the blog that companies every single one of our podcast episodes.

Let's start with probably one of the most common things of livestock, and that is going to be chickens. So, if you have chickens, and the same thing is going to apply to ducks or other poultry friends, then their shelter, of course, is going to be important. But that's something that you're already going to have in place. Now, if you use a chicken tractor or a movable coop, where you are moving them onto fresh grass or poultry netting, then I always make sure that I am moving them to new fresh ground the day that we're getting ready to leave, so that they're on fresh ground right from the get-go.

So, that ideally, either if I do have someone, which we'll talk about that, coming and checking on them, that they're not going to have to try to move the coop and to move the netting, and to deal with all of that. So, they get moved to their fresh ground. If you have a stationary coop, this would be where you'd want to make sure that it had been freshly cleaned, that you had fresh bedding in there, et cetera. Especially, if you're going to be gone for more than a day or two. If you're going to be gone for a day or two, not as big. But the longer you're going to be gone, then you are going to want to make sure that it's from as clean of state as possible right before you leave.

The next thing is to get extra feeders or larger feeders, same thing with your waterers. Get more waterers or get larger waterers, and fill them all the way up so that you are not having to fill them as often nor as someone else. Now, we have it so that I've got a big five gallon waterer for one of the chicken coops and double feeders. So, if I fill that five gallon waterer up and both the feeders up with food for the chickens, I know I can go at least two days without having to add any water or any feed for the amount of chickens that we have in that coop. So, some of this you are going to want to do ahead of time and keep track of how long does it take them to go through these when they're full before they're totally empty and they need to be refilled. Because that's going to give you a gauge for either you can leave them that long without having a farm sitter or someone come and check on them.

Or you can tell the person, "Hey, in three days, you're going to need to make sure that you check, because usually they're out by this time and fill something up," et cetera. Or you just know if it's going to last them for three days, for example, that you can be gone for three days and then you just need to be back on that third day because they'll be running low or almost out. So, it's really a good idea to get these things in place ahead of time so that you have some dry runs, so to speak, to see how long can they go without me topping things off or changing things out before they're all the way out when we're talking about food and water. Now, like I said, there have been times, if we just go away for the weekend, I know I can fill everything up for the chickens and they are not going to run out of food.

They're going to be completely fine for two days, and I don't have anybody come and check their items. I know that they're going to be okay. But if I'm going to be gone longer than a two-day stretch, I definitely, even if someone is not having to fill everything, I do want boots on the ground situation. So, we have neighbors, my brother lives right next door to us, but you might be like, "Well, that's great for you. I don't have family that lives next door to me." You can find somebody that can at least just give a visual look on everything. So, as again, if I'm going to be gone longer than two days, I want someone, so that in a weird scenario, you're gone and the water springs a leak or something like that. They tip it over and everything gets spilled out even though it's never happened before, you just never know with animals. I swear the minute you step away or you're gone, that's when something crazy happens.

So, I do like to have somebody physically that can just do a walk around and do a visual check, even if they're not having to feed or water anybody because they should technically have enough. It's always a good idea just to have some boots on the ground, eyes on everything, doing a visual check, because stuff does happen. We've had automatic waterers, that all of a sudden, the minute we left something went wrong on them and they wouldn't shut off. Or just something along those lines, where they broke and then no water was coming in or they weren't closing properly, and so our pump was going all the time and it was getting flooded. So, I do recommend automatic waterers, and not just when you're trying to leave on vacation. But automatic waterers are great, especially if you have cattle or larger livestock, so that their water is always full, that it's never running out and going dry.

So, I love our automatic waterers. They help us out a ton just as far as day-to-day management and time. But again, they are something you're going to want to look at because they can fail and they do fail. So, having those eyes on everything. One of the other things that you want to consider too is the time of year. So, generally speaking, it's much harder to get away in the middle of winter. If you have really harsh winters or snow freezing conditions, that puts an extra burden on your animals. You're going to be feeding them every day, because usually there is not any feed, especially if they're pasture animals, ruminant animals, like not chickens. Chickens are not ruminant, like dairy animals, this is what I'm trying to say, cows, that type of thing that are consuming pasture and grass. Well, during the winter, you probably don't have that available, and so you're having to feed them hay every day.

So, if you can plan your trip, if it's something that's plannable ahead of time, ideally we try to plan ours for summer because the cows just need to be moved to fresh pasture and have enough grass, and then the automatic waterer is there. They've got feed and water. Again, it's just someone visually checking to make sure that that water is full and the automatic waterer has not failed for some reason or another. But it's much easier to get someone or a neighbor to say, "Hey, can you just do a visual check? Make sure the cows are in, nobody's in trouble and the water trough is full once a day for me while we're gone." Than it is in the middle of winter to have someone to be able to physically feed for you and keep an eye on things, freezing or not freezing. So, trying to plan things when it's the least amount of workload is going to make it easier for you to find someone to help while you're gone versus when it's really hard weather.

Now, as I said, we will fill up everything for the chickens, including the ducks, and know we can be gone for so many days and it's not a problem. This time of year as we're moving into summer time, same thing with the cows. Also though, keeping in if you have your herd of cows or anything else as far as birthing wise, you probably want to make sure that you're not going to be gone when they're getting ready to give birth. Because there can be complications there, obviously when animals are birthing, and that's usually not something unless you're lucky to have a farmer friend or someone who has had livestock for a while to check in for you, then that's a little bit different situation. But if it's just a neighbor or somebody who doesn't really have a ton of experience, you can show them what needs to be done, but they're not going to be equipped to handle a birth if something does go wrong or know what to look for, et cetera.

So, you want to make sure that you're keeping that into consideration too when you're planning something that's far in advance. Now with the dairy animal, yes, you can still go on vacation, but that does get a little bit trickier, so let's talk about that. Well, dairy animals do need to get dried up. So, after they've been bred back, usually with cows, a minimum of 60 days before they're due, you are going to stop milking them and dry them up so that they have a period where they're not producing milk. All that energy can go into finishing off the baby before the baby is birthed, and then they're producing milk again. Now, that's with dairy cows.

I do not have dairy sheep or dairy goats, but you do still need to have a dry off period. I don't know the exact days on those. However, there is a period when they are not being milked before they give birth again. So, obviously, timing your vacations around that is going to make a lot of sense because you're not going to have to try to find somebody to milk for you while you're gone. But sometimes that doesn't always happen and you may have something planned. And even if you don't have something planned, highly recommend if you have a dairy animal to find somebody as a backup that knows how to milk in case of an emergency where you can't. Because it is very true, when you have a dairy animal, you cannot skip milkings. You are going to get mastitis for that animal. It's going to cause a lot of complications. You do have to milk every day. Depending on where they are in lactation, if they're calf sharing or not calf sharing, where they're at, that can be once a day.

Sometimes it can even be longer than that, where you can have a 16-hour window. If you have listened to my podcast episode with Robin, with cheese from scratch, she is trying out a new milking timing where it's every 16 hours. So, you have one day where it's like in the morning and then it's twice the next day. But it does this for obviously with 16 hours in a 24-hour period, you end up having a milking at different times during the day. But it gives a little bit greater flexibility. So, I'm sharing that, because it's not always milking twice a day, it's not always milking once a day. Sometimes there's variations in there. But the key is having someone besides you, not just for vacation, but if you were to get sick, break a leg, actually couldn't go out and milk the cow, or dairy goat, dairy sheep, et cetera, whatever your dairy animal is, that there would be somebody that had been trained ahead of time that could step in an emergency. That is very key when you have a dairy animal.

We did go on vacation when we had a milk cow, and I had a acquaintance and friend who didn't no longer had dairy animals, but they had had dairy goats when her kids were younger. So, she knew it is hard to get to leave, you can't leave, if you don't have somebody that can milk for you. So, she came, we did training the week beforehand and milked for us so that we could go on vacation. And she just came every day and milked Clover for us once a day while we were gone. And remember I said, the moment you step off the homestead, things that have never happened before will happen? We were gone in another state, so it's not like we were close by and I could just come home. And we had had Clover at that point and been milking her for six months, five months every single day, milking this cow and had her on the property for five months.

And the moment we leave, that is when Clover jumped the fence to get in with another part of the herd. And so, when she jumped the fence or pushed her way through, I'm not sure. I'm assuming she jumped it, because there was no downed fence. And she was a big girl with a big milk bag on her. I don't see how she could have gotten through the fence. I'm assuming she jumped it. We don't actually know how she got through the fence. But she got through the fence and there was no opening or gate where she went through to get into the other pasture, to get her back in to her milking parlor come milk time the next day. And if you've ever had a dairy animal, you know they are all about routine.

And so, when it came time, she knew it was time for her to be milked and she knew she was supposed to go in her milking stanchion, but she couldn't figure out how to get there. And so, she's bellering and my friend is here to milk her, and she's like, she's texting me and I'm on vacation, and she's like, "This is where Clover's at, but I don't know how to get her back." And I'm like, I should have known that this would've happened. Some things you just can't even foresee. So, I had to walk her through. She actually had to go through two, three gates, and two other pastures to get to the gate with this pasture that clover had gotten herself into was at. So, that she could get back to the milking station and the stanchion, and get milked and all of the things.

So, it did work out. She was able to get her back, but it was kind of like, yes, it's because we were gone, things that I never would've dreamed of are going to go wrong. So, thankfully, that all ended well. But I'm saying prepare yourself, because even though the best slate of plans when you're gone, something weird most likely will happen. However, it all had a happy ending. She was able to get her in, got her milked, got her back in her section of the pasture that she was supposed to be in, and all was well. So, it may require finding someone and going through the steps on how you want them to be milked. Yes, there is definitely more complexity when you have a dairy animal, but it can be done and you can still go on vacation. But it's most likely going to require someone on site and milking for you, unless it's in that window where that animal is dried up.

So, again, best scenario is having somebody that can come and at least do a visual walkthrough of the animals for you once a day. But you can also set it up so it's a lot easier for them with automatic waterers or having extra waters, extra feed, and all of that is full for chickens and poultry, so that they're not having to do as much manual work. It's a lot easier to get somebody if you say, "Hey, can you just stop by once a day and do a quick check of everything and just top it off if it needs be," rather than this long list of farm chores that have to be done every day. And honestly, the same thing is really true of the garden. Because I've had people say, "Well, I have this big, huge garden, so that means that I can't leave."

Friends, that's not true. Where there's a will, there is a way. Not that it's not going to require some extra work on your part, that is true. Like I have people say, "Well, it has to be watered." Well, get some irrigation, some drip hoses or some soaker hoses, put it on a timer. Even if it's a regular sprinkler system, you can put things on timers. And honestly, that's going to make it easier for you even when you are home. So, I think the whole moral of this is use these tips, but also don't let it be necessarily an excuse. And I've had people say, "Well, my friend tried to go on vacation and she had someone come in and do farm chores for her, and they did a really bad job. And when she came home, the animal had mastitis." This was in a milking situation. "The animal had mastitis really, really bad, so you can't go anywhere, you can't ever do anything." She didn't have the right person, obviously.

And with milking, as I said, it does add complexity, however, it can be done. And it's kind of like with anything, just because something went wrong one time, doesn't mean it's going to go wrong again. It just means you need to see, okay, what happened? What do I need to do differently to help mitigate that? And I think that's true with anything with homesteading, is you can always look at, hey, that didn't work, and then give up and not try it again. Or look at where did things fail. What went wrong? So, how can I make that better for the following time? Let's try this again, and et cetera. But you absolutely can. So, go on vacation, go on trips and do things.

But it is going to require some more work upfront and you're going to need to develop some relationships with somebody, because ideally you do have somebody who's checking in on things for you. Now, sometimes, like when we had the person who came and milked for us with Clover, she got to take all of the milk. And I also paid her gas for her to come, because she was driving up here, she wasn't staying on the farm the whole time. Sometimes you get a farm sitter where they're actually just staying at your place. And so, there's lots of different ways. So, maybe it's another person who has a homestead and you're trading. You're like, "You take care of my place when I'm gone. I'll take care of your place when you're gone." And so, that's not an exchange of money, that's just an exchange of a bartering of your time.

Sometimes we've had people who have taken care of things for us and we're like, "Well, hey, well you're gone, have all of the eggs. You can have all of the milk or you can pick whatever you want in the garden when it's ready." So, there's different ways to do that, you just need to get creative. But it's also really good to have some of those key relationships with people in your area and to cultivate that community part. So, look up other people in your area. And yes, I realize that they may not be right next door to you depending upon where you live. We live pretty rurally. So, the only other person at that time that I knew that had any milking experience, that could come and milk for us, she lived in the next town over actually. It's not like she lived right next door to me, but we were friends and had cultivated relationship.

So, it is really important to reach out into your community beforehand, find out who else is farming, who else is doing homesteading stuff, that type of stuff, and create that network locally. And even if it's not that person that can necessarily come and help you, they may know of somebody else that can or be like, "Oh, hey, this person took care of our animals when we left somewhere, you should give them a call." That type of thing. So, definitely being prepared ahead of time is going to be the biggest asset, and sitting and planning out. You're likely not going to be able to leave on the spur of the moment for a long period of time. But rest assured, you definitely can still go on vacation when you have livestock and a farm.

Now, speaking of feeding, and a livestock, and a farm, today's podcast episode is sponsored by Azure Standard. And Azure Standard carries Scratch & Peck, which is one of our favorite feeds. They have soy-free, organic, soy-free and corn free foods available for their poultry. And that's really important for me, because we actually have some customers who get eggs from us and they are very sensitive to both soy and corn. And so, it's been really hard for them to find an egg source that the chickens weren't fed stuff that had both soy and corn and them. So, I love that Scratch & Peck offers that. They have the pellets, which if you've ever had chickens before, you're probably familiar with that. You get the little rolled pellets. But they also have where it's more whole grain based, some of their food options.

And I like that because you can actually see the different grains in there. It's less processed than the pellets. And so, I like to feed that, especially when I have my younger flock as well and you've got infants coming in. They have some different starter crumbles and everything. They've just got a really great selection of the Scratch & Peck line. And it has been one of our favorite food sources for our chickens, both the chickens and the ducks. And the great thing is, if you are a brand new customer to Azure Standard, you can use the code Melissa10 and get 10% off your first time order of $50 or more. And they have animal feed, they have animal husbandry products, but they also have a ton of grocery items, both fresh as well as bulk and food storage items. So, definitely check out Azure Standard for your homestead needs both in the kitchen and the barnyard.

All righty. For our verse of the week, we are actually in Luke, and chapter 12:8-9. This is the amplified translation. "And I tell you, whoever declares openly speaking out freely and confesses that he is my worshiper and acknowledges me before men, the son of man also will declare and confess and acknowledge him before the angels of God. But he who disowns, and denies, and rejects and refuses to acknowledge me before men will be disowned, and denied, and rejected and refused acknowledgement in the presence of the angels of God." And I wanted to share that section of verse actually for a couple of reasons. The first is, I know in this day and age for those of you who are Christians or consider yourselves followers of Christ, and the Bible, that I've noticed a lot, especially in social media, there can be pushback from people who may not have the same beliefs. That if you mention anything about the Bible or Christianity or Jesus, they are highly offended by that.

And I've had a lot of reviews of the podcasts that are negative because they like the homesteading information, but they're very angry that I share a Bible verse at the end, despite the fact that I tell you ahead of time, this is our verse of the week. So, if you hear that and you don't want to hear a Bible verse, you just stop listening to the episode. You can fast-forward, you can click it off. I put it at the end so that for those who want to skip it or don't want to hear it, it is very easy to do so. And you have all of the homesteading content that you can listen to at the beginning of the episode.

But I am not going to stop sharing the verse of the week. So, if by doing that makes someone not want to listen to the episode, then that is their free choice. And it is also my free choice to share the verses and how I feel like they're applying to my life, and hope that you get some wisdom and some encouragement out of those verses, and for me sharing that as well. But I also had to sit and think about that, because of the court of popular opinion, stop sharing God's Word and what He's doing in my life. Well, when I get to heaven and stand before God, because that is what I believe will happen when I die, who am I trying to please? Truly, who am I trying to please?

Am I trying to please people that I've never even met before? Or am I doing and trying to please Jesus and God, whom is who I will be spending eternity with? And when you put it like that, because I know it's hard, well, at least for me, being honest speaking, it can be hard to have people come at you. And sometimes it's even people you know in real life, not just somebody over the internet, for example. But on Facebook or whatever social media app you have, you're probably friends or acquaintances with people that you know in real life. And if you share some of these types of things, you may get negative pushback from them. And I don't think any of us really like negativity, so that can be a little bit hard. And so, sometimes you may sit and think like, "Well, goodness, if I share this, what's going to happen?"

And some of you may not feel that way, you're like, "I don't care what anybody says, I'm going to share whatever I want to share," and that's fine. But I think sometimes, at least for me, I have thought, is this worth sharing to deal with all of the negative that I'm going to get by sharing this? And so, I've had to sit and think about this verse and evaluate that. And even with this will be going live the day of the Modern Homesteading Conference, and I even had people reach out and say, "Is there going to be anything about Jesus at this conference or religion? Because if there is, I don't want to go." And I just thought that was very interesting, that if there was any mention of religion, that somebody, even though they wanted to learn the homesteading stuff, that if a small portion had a Bible verse in it, that that would be enough for them to not attend.

But again, I have to ask myself, and you have to ask yourself if you are a Christian or a believer, because I'm assuming that you're still listening at this point if you are, who am I answering to ultimately? Am I answering to the court of man? Or when I stand before God, will I be comfortable confessing to Him why I chose to do a certain thing or not to do a certain thing? So, anyways, this has been something that I have been thinking about, because of both of these reasons that I just shared those parts of the story with you and deciding where is, I guess, my line? Where am I going to stand? What am I going to publicly say? What am I not going to publicly say, et cetera? And how does that line up with the Word of God? And where am I okay with that and all of that?

So, each person makes that decision for themself. But I just wanted to share that with you. And thank you so much for joining me with today's episode. And I hope that that helps you be able to attend either a conference or go on vacation with your family, but to be able to leave the homestead and have your animals still well taken care of. Blessings and Mason jars. For now, my friends, I will see you next week.