The Minivan's First Trip to the Feed Store

About two weeks after we got the keys to our new home, my husband came across an ad for some ducks at the feed store about 15 miles away. After considering the pros and cons of duck keeping for approximately 17 seconds, we piled everybody into the minivan and drove over to get some. The drive was pretty uneventful; we brought an old dog crate with us and determined we would pick out three of the five or so three-month-old Khaki Campbells the Co-op had to offer. After the guy at the Co-op chased down the three slowest ducks in the pen, we tossed them in the dog crate in the back of the minivan, covered the crate loosely with a tarp,  and headed back the 15 miles we had come.

Mind you, this wasn't actually the first time we'd transported poultry in the back of the minivan. We once drove about 8 hens from the family farm to my brother-in-law's house about 2 hours away. It was at night, and we put a blanket over the same dog crate, and everyone slept the entire, uneventful drive. Another time we picked up three spent layers someone was giving away, and butchered them in the garage of our townhome so we could learn and practice chicken processing without having to lay out any cash. Technically, there was nothing in the HOA bylaws that forbade butchering chickens in your garage, but we kept the garage doors shut during the process so that no one was any the wiser. It smelled...unpleasant. Especially with the garage doors shut. But the actual transportation of the three chickens was fine.

So we didn't actually think much about driving off with a few ducks in the back of our van. Rookie mistake, I guess. Ducks, unlike chickens, smell terrible. Our route home took us along a highway with a speed limit of 60 mph, and it was raining, but we rolled all the windows down. Even with the windows down and a nice mist of rain blowing through the van, the drive was odiferous, to say the least.

It is unbelievable how much three ducks can poop in the span of about 15 minutes. They put chickens to shame.

Now that they're home, we love them. Ducks have some serious attitude. They have a purposeful air about them that, paired with a waddle, makes them pretty hard to take seriously. Most importantly, we haven't seen a slug in the yard since we got them, which makes that initial odiferous drive totally worth it to me. Now that it's winter, it's hard to say how much of a difference they're making, but I'm looking forward to some spring gardening with their help patrolling for slugs and snails.