those of you with caged animals, what do you do with them when you go on holiday? and would you use a service like this?

[petsWelcome]

have changed my name only because people know where I live so don't want someone local stealing my idea.

Am considering setting up a business boarding caged animals, kind of on the same level as a kennil/cattery but for animals in cages.

I would charge a nightly fee, say £3/4 a night and for that I would feed/clean/exercise the animal where appropriate. Having the animals here at my house would save having to hire a petsitter and trusting someone the owner didn't potentially know with the keys of their house.

so would you use this service if it was available in your area?

I would pay £3 a night for a rabbit, and expect a discount for having our two together, I think. £6 for the two would be too much.
But we currently have more volunteers than we can accommodate to look after them! Small Caged animals like hamsters (and goldfish)are easier to farm out to people - you can just carry the cage round - so I wouldn't think there would be much of a market, would there?

I would (and do) use people for our rabbit. Normally around £3 a day, food etc all included and expect rabbit to be put out in run during day (if fine!) Great shortage around here and I find that although friends/family willing, when it comes to the summer,they are all away at the same time as us!

i would use it if i didn't have my dear old dad to babysit them

Our local petshop does this for £2 a night. Thats for rats, hamsters, etc. Rabbits are more I think. But I use my mum.

There are quite a few services that do this already (in my area anyway) - google petsitting in your area and get an idea what sort of rates/services your competitors charge.

Might be worth joining www.dogsit.com/ (not just dogs btw), people feel more comfortable if you have an 'accreditation'.

Was looking into this myself ysee!

Sounds fab to me. It cost me over £100 to put our rabbit and guinea pig in a cattery for 16 days over easter and is the only place within a 30 mile radius which takes them so if you are near West Berks can you send me a flyer when you get up and running. BTW we normally leave them with friends or neighbours but on this occasion everyone very inconveniently went away at the same time as us!

Good idea. Some places only charge £1 a day for small pets though depending on the area. Our local one wants £5 per day! Far too much.

How about charging per cage? Then my 3 guineas and 1 rabbit would only cost £6! I'd pay that

There are a couple of places round here that do this - I think the charge was about £20 for a week (Sat - Sat)I looked at it one year when my neighbour couldn't feed DD's rabbit, but in the end I found another friend.
One thing that did put me off btw was that one place said 'Don't worry - they don't have to be vaccinated' - I would prefer a place where they do have to be vaccinated.