There’s a well-documented business rule that suggests you should never hire your friends as employees.
Your pets? That’s another story.
Courtenay entrepreneur Cameron Ezzy has started his own pest control business, with some rather quacky employees: his pet ducks.
Slugs n’ Bugs For Lunch is a new pest control business in the Comox Valley, and the employees have quite an appetite for their work.
Ezzy said the transition from duck owner to business owner came about naturally, and nearly instantly.
“My landlady said I could get ducks so I got the ducks,” he explained. “I knew there was a slug problem in the area that I lived, and I my landlady was the one who said ‘you know, ducks are really good at eating slugs’ and that was it. So I didn’t buy the ducks specifically for the business, but once I saw this, the business idea came to me immediately.”
Ezzy brings the ducks to a residence, and from there, his fine-feathered employees do the rest.
He currently has four employees - Rosie, Aretha Franklin, Willow, and Jaco the lone drake (named after legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius), - and is hopeful some offspring will add to his empire in time.
“I am looking to build my flock up to a dozen,” he said. “Rosie – who is named after my mom – has been laying eggs and I haven’t been touching them, so I am hoping she is going to sit on those eggs very shortly, and hatch them.”
Ezzy said although he has had his ducks for nearly a year, he’s still learning the ins and outs of being a “duck master.”
“I am a first-time duck owner, so I am learning as I go. I am not an authority on the industry. But I do know one thing; this makes people smile, and that the most satisfying thing,” he said. “The environmental part of it - pest control without chemicals - is really good, but the best part of it is how you feel and how you smile by just watching the ducks. It’s all about them.
“This is my way of doing an environmentally friendly job, giving people a reason to smile, and hopefully teaching kids that there are alternatives.”
To find out more, Ezzy’s Facebook page is Slugnsnbugs For Lunch and he can also be found on Instagram at @slugsnbugscanada
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terry.farrell@blackpress.ca
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