Start with who lives where
A sitter caring for several small pets needs the map before the details. For each cage, write the pet's name, a sentence identifying them — the grey chinchilla, the pair of white mice — and where in the house the cage stands. Note temperament beside the name: who can be handled and enjoys it, who must be spot-cleaned around because handling stresses them, and who is an escape artist the moment a door opens. Small pets are easily confused by a stranger, especially same-species pairs in separate enclosures with different diets, so make each sheet unmistakably belong to one cage and clip it to that cage rather than leaving a single household document on the kitchen table.
Feeding amounts in the sitter's measures
Write every amount in the measures the sitter will actually use and leave the tools beside the cage: two level scoops of mix each evening, one handful of hay morning and night, half a small carrot twice a week. Avoid weights and volumes entirely — an instruction that needs kitchen scales is an instruction that gets estimated. Give times as well as amounts, because small pets run on routine and a nocturnal hamster's food appearing in the morning simply sits there. List the foods that must never be offered to that animal, by name, on the same sheet; a sitter should never have to guess whether a well-meant extra is safe. Finish the section with water: which bottles or bowls, how often refreshed, and how to check a bottle is actually dispensing.
Split cleaning into daily and weekly jobs
Cleaning is where vague notes cause the most trouble, so divide it visibly. Daily jobs are small and specific: remove soiled bedding corners and the toilet area, take out uneaten fresh food, refresh water, and check the wheel or litter area. Then state plainly which bigger jobs fall due during the sitting period — a full bedding change on a named day, a cage wash, a litter tray deep clean — and which are deliberately not to be done until you return, because a full clean strips away the familiar scent small pets rely on and is often better timed for a settled day. Say where the bedding, litter, and cleaning supplies live, and where the rubbish goes. A sitter who can find everything finishes every job; one who cannot will improvise.
Finish with the emergency block
End every sheet with the same block, in the same place: your mobile number, a second contact who holds a spare key, your vet's name, number, and out-of-hours arrangement, and a short list of what counts as urgent for that species. For most small pets the urgent picture is an animal who stops eating, one who is hunched and unusually quiet, laboured breathing, an injury, or an escape — and for an escape, write the first steps too: close the room door, stay calm, and call you before attempting a capture. Note any ongoing vet instructions the sitter must continue, copied exactly as the vet gave them. Passed over in KinsLe's Care Pass, each sheet stays attached to the pet it describes, so your sitter checks the right amounts and the right emergency steps for the cage in front of them.