Further information: Suitable for a house sitting couple experienced with horses. Unfortunately, this post is not suitable for children, because of the large stabled animals.

Responsibilities: Care for the 5 stabled animals. Feeding, mucking out, rugging as appropriate, Caring for our 3 dogs and 3 cats while we are away. While we are at home the work adds up to 4 mornings a week. There will be times when the horses are out for a few days at a time, and then we will need you to do some gardening instead. When we are away 1 week in 6 you need to be completely in charge. We also give you 1 week in 6 as holiday to travel.

Pets experience required: Domestic dogs, Domestic cats, Stabled animals

Property experience required: Garden, Stables 

This is a long term house sit based on a farm just outside the charming Normandy town of Villedieu les Poeles. There are 5 part stabled animals to care for, in exchange for four mornings work a week you will live in a stunning part of Northern France with your own accommodation and private facilities with hot tub. The farm has its own excellent equestrian facilities including an indoor school and stables, tack room, dedicated rug and feed rooms and hot water wash bay. For 10 euros we can use an excellent show jumping arena a short trailer drive from here.

The 5 horses you will help care for include: 1 retired competition Mare, 1 Mare and her foal, 2 riding horses and 1 retired Shetland pony. We may occasionally need you to give the horses their haylage at night. Our farm produces our own organic haylage. All our horses are bedded on shavings. You may also bring your own horse and dog if you have them and keep them here with ours.

The work will include 4 mornings a week, put out/or bring in horses, cleaning and refreshing water buckets , rugging up in accordance with weather conditions, mucking out, feeding, sweeping the corridor or garden work instead as required. Then approximately 1 week in every 6 we would like to travel away for the week and leave you in charge of the property. My husband and I are also happy to rotate and give you 1 week off in every 6 also so that you too can travel around Europe. 

We also have 3 Collie sized dogs, and 3 cats all obedient and house trained. All our animals are in good health. For those who love riding, we have very good hacking on Petit Chemin around us and the Foret Saint Sever is 15 minutes away in the trailer. There one can hack for hours in stunning scenery. There are also excellent beaches to ride on 30 mins drive from here.

Geographically we are located 10 minutes from the town of Villedieu les Poeles, where you can join the A84 motorway or catch a train to take you to Paris (3hrs) or Granville 15 mins. You can easily get to the city of Caen, and the D-Day beaches in an hour. Mont St Michel is 1 hour away. We have excellent travel connections to ferries being 1 hour (mainly motorway) from St Malo or Ouistreham (Caen) or the airports of Rennes (Flybe) and Dinard (Ryanair) We frequently travel to Germany to see our Totilas colt and take in equestrian events while there.

This year we have tickets available to a major European equestrian event taking place soon in Normandie . We would be happy to offer tickets to the house sitting couple who join us. For the right couple this could become a permanent position. We need a house sitting couple to start as soon as possible. Could this be for you? Please get in touch.