Owning chickens sounds wonderfully simple until you decide to go away.

Then come the questions.

Who's going to let them out?

Who shuts them away again?

Who checks the water?

Who collects the eggs?

And, perhaps more importantly, who actually knows when a chicken doesn't look quite right?

It's one of those problems you probably never think about unless you own them.

Cambridge pet sitter Nat's Pet Services does.

Alongside the dog walking and pet visits you'd expect, Nat specifically offers chicken and poultry sitting around Cambridge and nearby villages. nats-pet-services

And suddenly pet sitting gets rather more interesting.

Chickens don't check themselves into kennels

The attraction of keeping hens is partly that they're at home.

Your garden or allotment becomes their territory.

There's the familiar coop, the usual feeding routine and, if things are going well, eggs appearing with impressive regularity.

Going on holiday doesn't stop any of that.

Nat's chicken visits can include feeding, replenishing water, collecting eggs and checking the birds' health.

The service can cover hens kept at home or on an allotment.

That last part is easy to overlook.

Somebody agreeing to pop into your house to feed the cat is one thing.

Asking them to head down to the allotment and take responsibility for the chickens is a slightly different favour.

And if you've ever tried explaining an animal's precise routine to somebody who doesn't own that animal, you'll know how quickly a simple handover can become:

“Right, this bowl is theirs. Except not that one. And if she does this, don't worry. But if the other one does it, call me.”

Then there are the parrots

This is where Nat's business becomes even less like the standard picture of a pet sitter.

She also specialises in exotic bird care, including parrots and aviary birds.

Her experience includes her own rescue Hahn's macaws, rehomed budgies, celestial parrotlets and Bourke's parakeets

These aren't animals where “put some food down and I'll see you Tuesday” necessarily cuts it.

Nat says visits can include fresh food and water, cleaning cages or aviaries according to the owner's routine, and supervised exercise where appropriate.

Outdoor aviary visits can also involve monitoring chicks and eggs. 

Diet can become considerably more involved too.

Her bird-care service can accommodate individual routines involving pellets or seed alongside fresh vegetables, fruit and prepared sprouted seeds and pulses. 

That's a long way from filling a Labrador's bowl.

Perhaps “pet sitter” is too small a description

That's what makes this story interesting.

We tend to picture local businesses according to their most obvious service.

Pet sitter?

Dogs and cats.

But behind that description can be somebody with knowledge that solves a very specific problem for a much smaller group of people.

Nat has been providing pet care around Cambridge and surrounding villages since 2014.

Her current coverage includes areas such as Fen Ditton, Horningsea, Milton, Marleigh and Waterbeach, with other nearby locations considered too.

She's also fully insured and DBS checked. 

Pet visits currently start from £13, with the time required determining the price; Nat says there's no additional charge simply because a household has several pets or different species. 

But the price isn't really the interesting part of this story.

It's discovering that somewhere around Cambridge there's a person you can call because:

“We're going away next week and somebody needs to look after the chickens.”

And instead of getting a puzzled silence, the answer is:

Yes.

What’s The Most Unusual Pet In Your Cambridgeshire Household?

Chickens? Parrots? Lizards? Ferrets? Something we haven't thought of?

Tell us in the comments what lives at your house and who looks after them when you go away.

We have a feeling Cambridgeshire's pet population is considerably stranger than dogs and cats.