Usually you can catch the Kluckin Tavern at Tractor Supply in Gray La. on Saturday mornings. For all your fowl needs, Bobby Trahan and his parade of poultry are at your disposal. But we caught the trailer on the side of the road and decided stop and took a look inside.
Trahan said he and his wife sell all types of birds on the back of his truck for off-and-on for about five years now. He and his wife own a small farm, and decided to take it on the road, in this case literally, to sell their animals.
Trahan’s trailer is a weathered red hooked up to the back of his pick-up truck. With over 10 compartments inside, you’ll see everything from hens to guinea fowl, which he calls the bull dogs of birds because of their aggressive and protective nature.
“We raise about five types of ducks,” he said. “We raise two types of geese and we sell guineas, and this is just a side hobby we like to do.”
Trahan’s day job deals with electrical work, but he and his wife love to raise birds. With incubators back on his farm, Trahan said he raises all the birds from eggs himself. In fact, there were a couple chicken eggs on the trailer he said were laid that morning.
“There’s a lot of people who sell livestock, but I’m the only one that’s got a trailer like this. I built this,” Trahan said.
Aside from tending to his animals, and building great trailers of course, Trahan is like other Louisianans and like to near the water. Water is a big part of Louisiana culture he says.
“Fishin’, shrmpin’, crabin’, that’s all they do out here,” he said.
And with living in Louisiana for some time, he said he’s seen some land changes. Trahan says the land is eroding away from the storms and because of levees, sediment isn’t being replenished.
It seems that not just residents on Isle de Jean Charles, are noticing the effects of the levees placed on the Mississippi river.
“All these levees coming from up north down this way, they not letting the natural flow come down and it’s holding up a lot of the soot up north and it’s not coming down like the natural flow like it used to,” Trahan said. “You can’t mess up God’s ways.”
Islander Johnny Tamplet agreed with Trahan saying that the blockage of water and sediment are reasons erosion is happening.
“The great Corps of Engineers came down and they put a levee on the Mississippi river,” Tamplet said. “They had outlets but as the outlets plugged up, they just shut em’ down, blocked em’ out. So now we don’t have the fresh water coming from the Mississippi river that we did 80-90 years ago.”
Tamplet and Trahan both are concerned about the shut off of the Mississippi river. Saltwater not being replaced with fresh water is starting to effect fishing says Trahan and other Louisianans.
Although slightly sad about fishing, Trahan says he’ll continue to raise his birds because they have his heart.