Duckling to Duck in 60 Seconds!

Ever wonder how fast your duckling grows? Ask us and we’ll say that at about 8 weeks they are 90% grown.

But that doesn’t really give people new to the duck world any idea.

A customer of ours made a really great video showcasing his Fawn and White Runner and Pekin ducklings and just how much and fast a duckling can grow. Take a look!

Indian Runner Ducks

Adult Fawn and White Runners

Indian Runner ducks are named as such as it was believed they had originated from India. They first hit English soil in the 1850’s and were admitted into the American Standard of Perfection in 1898. It wasn’t until 1901 that importers acknowledged that the ducks originated from Southeast Asia, not India. By then the name had stuck.

Baby Fawn and White Runners

Indian Runner ducks are unique from other domestic breeds as they stand upright and do not waddle, they run. A light weight duck, about 3¼ to 4 pounds, this breed was widely used as proficient weeders and snail eaters in fields. Southeast Asian farmers would have them walking fields during the day eating waste rice, weed seeds, insects, slugs and other bugs. At night they were put up in bamboo pens where the farmers would collect the eggs in the morning and release them to another field for cleaning.

Adult Chocolate Runners

The utility of the Indian Runner as a working duck can also be seen in its egg production and meat it has to offer. For its thin size, it has a surprising amount of meat and was common on tables in Southeast Asia and even on ships as a living source of food where they were known as “Baly Soldiers” or “Penguin Ducks”. Indian Runners took the place of what chickens are today as they laid many more eggs. Asian cultures introduced unique uses for duck eggs including balut, where an egg is partially incubated before eating, and salted eggs, where the egg is put in a salt solution or salt mud until the salt has permeated the entire egg as a preservative agent. However, over 80 years of selecting for color, shape, and stance, but not egg production, has caused their laying abilities to trend downwards to where they are now only average in laying ability. Our data shows that Runners currently lay about 100-180 eggs a year.

Baby Chocolate Runners

Today, Runner ducks have other uses other than field cleaners, egg layers, and pets. Runners have a personality we classify as “nervous” and have a habit of staying together in a flock - where one goes, the others do, too. Because this type of behavior resembles the flocking instinct of sheep, they are used to train herding dogs.

Baby Blue Runners

We offer 4 color variations of Indian Runners: Black, Blue, Chocolate, and Fawn and White. The Black and Chocolate Runners breed true, meaning if you breed a Chocolate Runner with a Chocolate Runner you will get a Chocolate Runner, but the Blue does not. We have two pens of breeders in order to hatch Blue Runners. One pen has Black Runner males on Silver females. The other pen has Silver males on Black females. This gives us 100% Blue colored Runner ducks.

Adult Black Runners

Due to their utility, unique stance and varied coloring, Runner ducks are a very popular bird year-round. They lay a decent amount of eggs, are smaller than the average duck, and require minimal maintenance. If you are looking for a versatile and self-sufficient duck, the Indian Runner would be an excellent choice for any flock. 

Baby Black Runners

Breed	Temperament	Weight	Egg Production	Mothering	Bluish Eggs	Egg Size
Indian Runner	Nervous	3.25 - 4 pounds	100-180/year	Poor - Fair	70%*	65-80 grams
Fertility	APA Class	Foraging Ability	Conservation Status	Our Show Quality	Flying Ability	Origin
84%**	Light	Very Good	Recovering	Average	None	Indonesia

*Chocolate Runners have a 75% chance of laying bluish eggs while Fawn and White Runners only have 37%.
**Chocolate Runners and Fawn and White Runners have a 86% fertility.

Results of Duck Breeder Flock Culling

Originally posted by John Metzer on Wed, Aug 11, 2010 @ 12:37 PM

Last week we went through our Rouen, Cayuga, White Crested and Fawn and White Runner breeder flocks.  Each female was picked up and the distance between her pelvic bones was estimated.  This technique was shown in our last blog: Determining Which of Your Ducks Is Laying. I want to share the results with you.
The Fawn and White Runner flock had 405 females in it that were at 33% egg production (this means we were getting an average 33 eggs a day for every 100 females).  We put a fence down the middle of the pen, one side for the "keepers" and one side for the cull birds. After checking each female, we had 175 females in the "keep" flock and 230 females in the cull flock.  The next day the females in the "keep" flock layed 112 eggs which is a rate of 64%.  The females in the group that we will not keep laid 6 eggs which is a rate of 3%!

So by checking each female, we removed 57% of our feed bill and only lost 5% of our eggs!  As there are now fewer females in the pen, we will also use less shavings.  Of course we were able to remove some of the males, too.  As far as we know, there is no way to visually determine the fertility of a male but you can cull out any males that are less thrifty than the others, have bad legs or appear to have been picked on by other birds.
The results for the other flocks was just as impressive:

Cayuga start 49%, after culling: keep flock 66%, cull flock 7%

White Crested start 35%, after culling: keep flock 69%, cull flock 1%

Rouen start 43%, after culling: keep flock 66%, cull flock 7%

Mallard start 30%. after culling: keep flock 63%, cull flock 0%

Of all the breeds, the Mallards were the easiest to differentiate layers from nonlayers.  As you can see, over half the females were  removed and there were no eggs in the cull flock pen the next morning.

The picture shows the keep and cull flocks of Fawn and White Runners.  As you can see, there is very little difference in appearance in the two flocks.  You have to pick up each bird and check it.  It is basically a comparison with other birds of the same breed so if you have never done it before, check 10-15 birds and note the difference among them.  Then start over and remove those birds in which their pelvic bones are stiffer and closer together than the others.

In our next blog we will be addressing how to use the feed formulation program on our website. http://www.metzerfarms.com/FeedConversion.cfm.  Many times you cannot find feed with the correct level of protein.  This program will show you how much to mix of two different feeds to achieve the protein (or other nutrient) level you want to achieve.
Thank you! Enjoy your ducks and geese!