Prepping for winter

I've already written about what we do with the animals in winter but as we are coming up on a vacation I've been thinking about how to make things easiest for a sitter. Here are the projects that need to be done before we leave:

1) Another bucket feeder for our chickens. We don't ferment the food in the winter and this will hold a couple of days worth of food.
2) Another automatic coop door for the secondary coop (currently housing our friend's chickens while she is in temporary housing)
3) Figure out how to keep the hose from freezing for the horses water. Currently I fill their tank completely full before a freeze and during the freeze they have enough water (thanks to a tank heater) to last until it's warm enough to defrost the hose again. Problem is you have to dig the hose out from under any snow so it can get sunlight. No big deal if you are living here but when someone is only coming once every 2 days they need water right then. A heated hose is an option but expensive ($80 for 20'). After looking online for suggestions, I've decided to run our hose up over a post that is between the tank and the pump and get a quick disconnect for the hose. This way it will be easy to disconnect the hose from the pump and the water will all drain out on it's own.
4) Setup a heated bowl for the goats. Luckily they don't drink much so the 1 1/2 gallon bowl that's on it's way should be enough.
5) Get a small hay bale for the goats. That should last them all week so they'll only need watered.

With this setup if the dogs aren't here we would only need someone to come by every other day. It's the dogs that would require daily attention. This vacation we have had a friend graciously offer to stay out our house since she'll be off work that week, but the next vacation we won't have that option. We have a fellow farmer in the same town that is interested in trading services. That would be ideal so we don't have to spend a ton of money having someone come over. Hopefully we can find a house or two for the dogs so they won't have to come over every day and the dogs would have more company than just a 10  min visit.

Got to get to work!