Bill Volkart, the Duck Man of Clermont County, had a stroke and died in 2005. “I was dead for two minutes,” Volkart, 58, said earlier this week. “I don’t know exactly how they brought me back. I got resuscitated, but I wasn’t in the emergency room. I was in heaven.” After getting home from the hospital, paralyzed on his left side for months, he had an epiphany. “I became convinced I was sent back for a purpose,” Volkart said. “My whole life changed.”
He had no insurance to pay for physical therapy, but Volkart regained his health by caring for seven wild ducks that had taken up residence near the half-acre pond in his
yard five months earlier. His rehabilitation included “coming out here at dawn and late evenings to feed them, carrying 50-pound bags of duck food,” Volkart said. Now, he and his wife, Gigi, 71, operate the Mount Holly Duck Sanctuary from their stone house and surrounding five acres at 2278 Berry Road, near the intersection with Ohio 222. It is the only duck sanctuary in Southern Ohio that Bill Volkart knows of, and possibly one of only three in the state.
About 50 ducks and a goose named Howard depend on the Volkarts for
food and shelter, which includes a heated duck coop that Bill built. Breeds include pekin, Muscovy, mallard, rouen and blue Swede. It’s possible that some of the ducks could live in the wild without the sanctuary, but would Bill Volkart survive without them? “I fell in love with all these animals,” he said. “I believe they are the reason I’m alive. They motivated me to be more than I was.”He operates the Dazzle Service window-cleaning company, but “everybody in the area calls him the Duck Man,” Gigi Volkart said. Some ducks are popular as Easter presents for children but grow to be too much trouble to keep, Bill Volkart said. “Taking care of ducks is a totally different experience than taking care of most anything else,” he said. “They have special food requirements and (need) particular medical care.”
One room of the couple’s modest house has been dubbed the animal hospital. Classical music plays on a radio to soothe ruffled feathers. Dewey, who has deformed feet because of an improper temperature setting on a school incubator project gone awry, lives there in a box. Another box holds a duck recuperating from an attack by a raccoon. “We go through hundreds of cans of air freshener,” Gigi Volkart said as she sprayed the room. “It’s a lot of work.” The sanctuary has all the water fowl it can handle.
“We need donations more than ducks,” Bill Volkart said. “The flock eats upwards of 100 pounds of duck food a week, which costs about $30.” During a township-wide yard sale in daylight hours this weekend, “we are hoping to raise much-needed funds to be able to continue to feed the many ducks brought to and born at the sanctuary,” Gigi Volkart said. The sanctuary will participate in the sale from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday through Sunday. Those interested should call ahead, 513-734-7791.
The couple will try to sell everything from old tools and fishing gear to a stamp collection and copies of the 32-page children’s book written by Bill Volkart, “Meep Finds His Way.” Autographed copies will be sold for $10, which is $5 less than it costs on the Web site . Illustrated by Maureen Heidtmann, a children’s librarian in Connecticut, the book is about a blind duckling who is adopted by a loving woman. People can adopt a duck from the sanctuary, but Bill Volkart must be sure the bird is going to a good home, rather than a restaurant. “I don’t let just anybody who shows up here take one,” Bill Volkart said. “No, you’re not going to make soup out of my ducks.”
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