Arranging care for your horses when you're away

I was just curious what everyone does with their horses/other pets when you go on vacation or even just leave for a weekend. Do you have a friend, neighbor, family member come take care of your animals? Are you 100 percent happy with him/her?

If you're like me, nobody takes care of them as well as you do! I am pleased with our neighbor, though, who cares for ours. We also have a few back up people on hand if she can't do it.

We call our nieghbor lol and if she's gone we have a family member do it, I hate doing that though because most of my family members have been around horses but don't own horses and they believe the lies my uncle tells about my horse so when we get back we get lies and stories about how my horse was a holy terror when all he wanted was a cookie and everyone took it out of proportion

Find a horse sitter! I have done horse sitting from 2 to over 20 horses, plus dogs, ranging from a weekend to two weeks. I love animals and people just pass my name around.

We go alot over weekends and in the winter to Az. For awhile. Our neighbor checks on them when were gone for just a weekend theres really no big amount of chores we put out round bales and only feed grain to the young stock. In the winter when were gone we have a good freind that's only 10 miles away that helps with chores whos a horse person. I've never gotten into my horses can't live without me being here their care isn't hard to do and if I'm no longer here their life should go on as normal.

Well normally I just tell my BO I'll be gone. If my friend is home I'll mention that she's welcome to come up and ride my horse, but other than that...he's taken care of by the BO

We hire someone to stay at the farm to take care of the horses, other animals and house. We want our boarders to recieve the same level of service when we are home or not.

I have a wonderful pet sitter who owns and is very experienced with horses. She's great :)

The horses, goats, cats, and critters are easy... it's the dogs that are the problem! We have 8 and 2 are huge, 1 is large and doesn't play well with others, 1 can't be outside very long (medical reasons) and 1 pup who is a terror... so they make it very difficult to get away! We spread them out between friends and family, and usually end up boarding one or two as well.

I used to have a friend stay at my house, but her husband is very controlling and decided he didn't like that (he stayed there with her as well) so that's out now. Once my dad stayed there, but he had to move in at that time for about 6 weeks anyhow in between a house selling and buying his new place.

Well my family owns a boarding farm, so we don't get to leave very often! It usually takes a fair bit of organizing before we can leave too.

We have one hired hand who does stalls Monday - Friday, which is of course a huge help. She's great and extremely dependable (imagine that, GOOD barn help!). When we're away she'll bring the horses in for us in the afternoon and feed them and stuff.

We have one neighbor who is great with the horses and used to lease my dad's old horse. She loves it and enjoys helping us out. Then in exchange, we take care of her cats/dogs when she needs to go away.

Our boarders are also great when we need to go. They'll feed for us, turn out, bring in, clean stalls, etc.

We're really very lucky with all of the people we have available to help us out. I'm away a lot for shows during the summer and without them I have no idea how I'd be able to leave! It's a lot of planning but it's all worth and we've never had a problem.

If it's just going to be over the weekend, I have my Uncle do it. He lives right down the road and has had many horses before, so he knows what he's doing. If it's for a while, then it just depends on who is available. Usually it's just family, because everyone on my mom's side of the family has had horses at sometime in their life. It all works out pretty well.

BTW...what is a BO?

We have a good family friend who has taken care of them a couple of times when we were gone. He did an excellent job.
My dad usually stays home to take care of them though..

Reese, BO stands for Barn Owner.