Hello. I’m thinking of getting an account and had a few questions . Firstly - UK Home Owners do you usually find a sitter when required? ie how reliable is it? Secondly i’m not in London and in a fairly rural place (but with good road, rail and airport links) is that likely to affect my chances of finding a sitter? Lastly do you use it for longer stays only or can it be good for say long weekends 3-4 days? And finally how far in advance do you usually post your vacancies? Oh and final, final questions do non-typical animals affect if you get applications - in my case a couple of pigs, a couple of sheep and 6 chickens…thanks!!
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I would not take those (no experience) but at least such animals do not normally suffer from separation anxiety like so many pets on the site.
Hi - thanks for the reply - they’re actually all really easy - just give them food and water twice a day! I do fully understand why people might not take it on though 
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Hi @Zen101 and a very warm welcome to the Community Forum 
There are plenty of sitters that would be happy to care for pigs, sheep & chickens. My hubby and I have cared for all of these and loved it!
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We are sitters, the majority of 17000 people (owners and sitters) have given this site 5* on Trustpilot, which is excellent, we personally love it!
I wouldn’t worry about what you have to offer, there seems to be every variety of sitters on this site to suit most places, but to answer your questions:-
Rural - We’re in the UK, and most of ours have been quite rural, mainly in North Yorkshire and Cumbria because we love the countryside and the peace and quiet.
Sit Length - We sit both short and longer term. The shorter length of sits, slot perfectly into any gaps we have between longer ones, and there’s a lot of full time sitters on this site that do the same. So our shortest has been 2 nights, our longest will be 9 weeks which is in 2024.
Advance bookings - We’ve got bookings up to Autumn of next year (2024). Farm animals - Up until this year we had no prior experience of farm animals, but we sat a pig earlier in the year, and now we’d be totally open if someone a few sheep, chickens, or anything else reasonably low maintenance. Whilst not everyone wants farm animals, there are plenty that are open to it when it’s a manageable amount and fun to learn about.
Hope that helps
@Zen101
We are sitters.
We do a lot of sits in the UK, and having had sheep we get invited to sits with them. We prefer rural locations and most of our sits are.
I would put up a listing as soon as you know your dates. We have locked in sits up to a year in advance.
Good luck!
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Hello! From a sitter’s perspective:
- We actually only sit in rural locations, so not living in London would be a plus for us!
- We see sits posted for a wide range of durations - in our case, the longer the better but I know lots of people look for weekend sits only. Sometimes we have short availability between sits that we need to fill up so will accept shorter sits in that case.
- We’d book long sits usually months in advance and shorter ones usually weeks in advance (unless we know we have a small gap already)
- We absolutely love the non-typical sits, we’ve cared for lots of chickens and sheep through THS and would jump at the chance to have pigs to look after (though both do have prior experience of farm animals)
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Thanks very much! Good to hear 
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@Zen101 we are UK based and like to do mainly rural sits. We love caring for chickens. I have always fancied caring for sheep and my 12 year old son loves pigs - they are top of his wish list of animals he"d like to care for on a sit. We would certainly be very interested!
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Hello Zen. I have looked after sheep and chickens in the past, so adding a couple of pigs to that would not be a problem. I actaully quite like rural. I would not travel a long distance just for three or four days though but if it fitted conveniently between other sits, within a reasonable distance, it would not be a problem.
I venture to suggest that a large proportion of those >17k Trustpilot reviews are actually reviews of the owners and sitters but the authors thought they were writing reviews on the THS site. It’s the result of sleight of hand in the way the review request is presented @HappyDeb.
However, it’s good to know you are happy, Deb
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@Zen101 , I am a Home Owner not a Sitter and we’ve been using THS since 2018 and had some fabulous sitters from all over the world. You really need to sell yourself and your home, since the site has grown so much. We are also very rural so I put lots of photos up (even one of our traffic free lane). Information about local attractions etc. As for animals, as I have horses in my last sit I actually did a search for “horses” and found a fabulous horsey lady, likewise you could do it for pigs etc. Not sure about a short term sit though as we always go away for 2 weeks and people like to settle in and make it their home. If you can offer the use of a car (insured) that also helps.
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Before you post quite so many questions I recommend you search because most, if not all, of your questions have been discussed here on the forum.
@Zen101 as a SITTER, your location and animals would be the first I would apply for over sitting in London e.g. or any other city! When I return next year, your type of sit, location and animals are what I will specifically be looking for so don’t hesitate in posting. Many, many more also think like me.
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Most definitely!
While I haven’t looked after pigs yet, I hope to one day. I’ve had plenty of chickens, 42 rare sheep and large groups of alpacas twice. Upon returning to the UK in March I’ve a sit lined up that includes 4 Pygmy goats which I’m looking forward to!
I would say rural locations in south get more applications than the north. North sitters can tend to have low applications. I have got plenty of sits like this for those reasons. I would join the cheaper uk sitter site if you don’t get lots of applications then try trusted.
For that I would book my sitter min 1 to 3 months ahead of the sit.
Hope that helps.
Hello yes that helps a lot thanks. Appreciate the fully response. I think the best thing is to give it a try and see how it works out. seems like a good deal for everyone, which i like!
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