Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Duck Rental

One of the travails of duck husbandry turns out to be travel. When we are planning to go out of town I inevitably end up realizing, with horror "Oh God, we have to find someone to take care of them again!" It is difficult to imagine that any neighborhood child, for ten dollars a day, would enjoy dealing with feces-infused duck water, an electric fence and four feathered nincompoops that thinks he's a murderer. However, we have always found such a person. Some kids seem to think it is fun.

This has lead us to a new line of thinking entirely. Perhaps, what we need to do is work the supply side of the equation instead. My husband thinks that what we need to do is sell the whole situation as a "duck rental." The ad might look something like this:

DUCK RENTAL: Risk free– play small-scale urban farmer right here in beautiful Northern New Mexico. For one week, you can enjoy duck ownership with no commitment. Relish hours of amusement at their playful antics. Take advantage of great photo ops. Take home free fertilizer and eggs. At the end of one week, walk away with no major investment of time or money spent, and no ducks. The perfect scenario. Bring the kids.
WARNING: Some risk of Salmonella. All liability assumed by renter.

What do you guys think? You in?


16 comments:

  1. Are they friendly? If they are friendly, I am in. I always wanted to pet a lion, but a duck will do for now.

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    1. No, they're assholes. But it is fun to chase them and watch them run away quacking in terror. If you corner them, you can pet them.

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  2. You may have something here. My jBird feeds our neighbors' chickens when they go out of town and just loves to go chase them around the yard and get poo and dander on her.

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    1. Then this is a sure hit! It is almost impossible not to get both dander and poo on you at my house. I should have included that in the ad, I guess. Also, one of my girl ducks will squeak like a rubber toy if you give her green peas.

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  3. Imma a gonna pass! LOL I do think it is a splendid idea, though. I had boys and they woulda run and got their piggy banks to rent ducks for a week. We housed rats, guinea pigs, hamsters, fish, a rabbit, the normal cats and dogs and the occasional frog. Yep, a duck rental would of for sure got them fighting over who got to take of them little a$$holes!

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  4. I'm stuck on the fact that you have ducks. YOU HAVE DUCKS. All I have is a cat.

    Of course, one super asshole duck pretty much traumatized my brother about five years ago. So...I'm a bit wary of the creatures. But the ad is awesome.

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    1. This is what happens when you have two many kids...and when you are slightly cracked. We have ducks because my middle son asked for a pet duck since his nickname is Devy Ducks. I actually wrote a whole post chronicalling how this took place. It makes me look completely batshit crazy. Because I am, probably.

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  5. Brilliant sales pitch- Also a serious point here. Tic born diseases. Tara- you may be a victim of your ducks. Talk to a vet rather than a "quack"-. Some of your illness profile definitely fits. Like other birds, ducks are big carriers of zoonoses.

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    1. Thanks. I think my cat and dog are probably more likely to have ticks than the ducks as far as I can tell, but it is an interesting point. Perhaps I have Bird Flu. They have conducted every blood test known to man, so it is likely that they screened for any tick-born diseases that could be screened for, and I'm sure they considered Lyme in the two or so years they have spent diagnosing me, but HONESTLY, one never knows. I have never had a tick bite that I remember, but I don't rule out the possibility that my ducks are poisoning me either. It's just the kind of thing they would do.

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  6. Born and bred in Brooklyn N.Y I never even saw a duck when it was not floating around in my bath. Thanks for sharing..;)

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    1. No ducks in Brooklyn? I should rent mine out there, to city dwellers. I bet I could charge EXTRA for that!

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  7. I hope you read my comment directly above. I never saw your following instructions until just now.

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    1. No worries. I've hidden them so only the devout can find them.

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  8. I am here on M Half's suggestion. (Which is funny because I first pointed her to you LOL) WHAT A GREAT IDEA!! Seriously, please keep us updated if you do this, How fun. As for our little hobby farm, I may be blogging a rental draft soon. I will credit you for sure. Ha!

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Faith in Ambiguity by Tara Adams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License