Rouen Ducks

The Rouen has gone by a few contested names. Initially it was named after “Rhone”, an area in France known for its food and wine (though what part of France is not known for its local cuisine!) during the early 1800’s. “Roan” was its name for a while as it referenced the mixing of colored and gray plumage. It’s believed that the name “Rouen” was finally selected by the people of Normandy for the city of Rouen.

The Rouen breed was the national standard for a meat bird until the Pekin was introduced in 1873. The Rouen was then added to the American Poultry Association Standard of Perfection in 1874.

Rouen ducks come in two varieties: the regular utility duck, which we have, and the large Standard duck, which we do not.

The Standard Rouen is much larger than our Rouens at about 9-10 pounds. They are the only Rouen of the two types that are successfully shown at fairs and competitions. Their bodies are much larger in length and depth to the point they almost drag on the ground. As their keel drags on the ground, they are more difficult to keep clean and they do much less foraging than a utility Rouen.

Our utility Rouens are bought for many purposes. Averaging at 5-7 pounds, they are known to have excellent meat. They are great egg layers at about 140-180 eggs per year. Their fertility is about 89% and they make excellent broody mothers. For those interested, about 35% of females lay bluish eggs.

And if none of that interests you, many people buy them as they make great pets. While their personalities are quite calm, the reason most buy them as pets is due to their vibrant coloring. While the female has a mottled pattern of various browns for her plumage and a dusty orange bill, the male is the showstopper with his gray body, white collar, green head, and yellow bill. Finally, both males and females possess a vibrant blue stripe on their wings.

Do keep in mind that the coloring of the male is dependent on age. The Rouen male will look exactly like the female for roughly the first 12 weeks of life. At week 12, their gray bodies, white collars, chestnut chest, and green heads will slowly start to come in over the course of about 3 weeks.

It is due to their coloring that many can easily mistake Rouens for Mallards. Truly, the only differences between a Mallard and a Rouen are that Rouens are bigger and flightless. For those wanting the aesthetic of a Mallard, but don’t want them to fly or need to trim their wings, a Rouen is the best answer.

One thing the Rouen has over the Mallard, however, is that they are not restricted within the United States. Florida has banned the importation of Mallards as they do not want them breeding with their native black duck. This means that any Floridians looking for a substitute for the Mallard should be quite happy with a Rouen.

Rouen ducklings!

Breed	Temperament	Weight	Egg Production	Mothering	Bluish Eggs	Egg Size
Rouen	Calm	5 - 7.25 pounds	140-180/year	Good	35%	80-95 grams
Fertility	APA Class	Foraging Ability	Conservation Status	Our Show Quality	Flying Ability	Origin
87%	Heavy	Good	Plenty	Not for Exhibition	Maybe	France

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!

Hatching Process and When to Help

Hatching your own eggs is a wonderful experience. Caring for the eggs, making sure the temperature is just right, ensuring there is enough humidity, and then going through the nerve wracking experience of watching the chicks’ struggle to escape the shell can be very rewarding. After all of your hard work, of course you will be nervous the little ones hatch successfully. Then you see one that seems to be in trouble. Your first instinct may be to help it, and that is fine, but you should know a few things first.

As it incubates, the embryo is encased by a membrane consisting of blood vessels. These vessels provide oxygen that enters the egg through the shell to the embryo. Several days before hatching, this network of vessels begins to break down and the embryo lacks sufficient oxygen. The egg will have slowly dried out during incubation, forming an air sack. This sack is pierced by the chick in order to get oxygen. Since there is not a lot of air in the sack, the chick will continue to peck until it ‘pips’ a tiny protrusion on the shell which allows for a greater flow of oxygen. After pipping, the chick will rest for 12 to 24 hours.

Once the chick has rested, it starts to make its way out of the egg. It starts at the pip before turning slightly and pecking again. The chick will continue this pattern around the egg until it forms a ‘lid’ which it can push open and wiggle out the rest of the way. During this process, the chick will take several breaks until it is finished about 1 to 3 hours later.

These rest periods are where most nervous soon-to-be bird parents think they are needed the most. After seeing and hearing movement only to have them go quiet and still can be stressful. Knowing when and when not to help a chick hatch is important.

When you help could mean life or death for the chick. If you help before the network of blood veins has completely broken down, you can cause the chick to bleed to death. Following are three scenarios and our recommendations for each.

• The chick forms a hole where it pipped and does not start rotating within the shell. In this situation you must be careful as not everything went as it should. You can try to help, but stop and try several hours later if you see blood forming where you have broken the shell.
  
  In the following video, we did not see blood until the 'lid' had been taken off. Make sure to stop and try again several hours later whenever you see blood.
  
  

  
  
• If the duckling has started turning and breaking the shell, then runs into a problem and stops turning, you can normally help them without a problem. The key is they have started turning in the shell which means the blood vessels under the shell have shut down and you can help them without fear of excessive bleeding. Gently pull the head out from under the wing and allow the chick to escape the rest of the egg on its own.
  
  The following video shows a variety of eggs where the 'lid' has not been developed and the chick has not turned, but we were able to help them because there was no blood.
  
  

  
  
• If the chick has gone completely around and formed a ‘lid’ only to get stuck, you can definitely help them out by removing the cap.
  
  

Many believe that helping during hatch will make the chick weak. This is not necessarily true. You could have a perfectly healthy and fit chick, but due to less than ideal incubation conditions, it may not be able to hatch on its own. On the flip side, it is possible to get a weaker chick when helping a less than healthy chick to hatch. As author and waterfowl expert Holderread says, hatching is like a “fitness test” for the chicks.

Cayuga Ducks

There is no definitive origin of the Cayuga, but traditionally it is believed that a miller in Duchess County, New York caught a pair of wild black ducks and decided to raise them for eggs and meat for both his table and the marketplace in 1809. It is then said that John Clark obtained some of these black ducks in Orange County, New York and introduced them to Cayuga County, New York in 1840 where the Cayuga got its name. Should the traditional origin be true, this would make the Cayuga the first duck originating from the United States.

The Cayuga was added to the American Standard of Perfection in 1874. A very hardy duck with great utility, they were very popular for meat purposes until the Pekin was introduced to the market in the 1890’s. Today they are considered a threatened species by the Livestock Conservancy.

Adult Cayuga Male

Cayuga are a medium weight duck, about 4¾ to 6 pounds, and have meat that is considered quite flavorful. Due to the dark pin feathers and the dark coloring they leave in the skin, however, the carcass is not as clean appearing as a Pekin. They can lay about 150 eggs a year with egg color ranging from black to light gray. Cayuga are quite docile and easily tamed making them excellent pets. While their plumage can be considered a greenish black, they shine iridescent green in the sun and start to turn gray or white as they age. Sometimes this change starts in one year and sometimes it takes several years for the white feathers to begin appearing. Interestingly, some flocks originating from the same parents will molt to white feathers sooner than others. We breed our Cayuga exclusively on our farm and sometimes at the end of some years we have a lot of whitish birds, and other years there are none. Therefore, change must be induced by something in their environment. What that something is we have not been able to determine.

Freshly laid Cayuga eggs

Breed	Temperament	Weight	Egg Production	Mothering	Bluish Eggs	Egg Size
Cayuga	Calm	4.75 - 6 pounds	130-180/year	Fair	<2%	75-90 grams
Fertility	APA Class	Foraging Ability	Conservation Status	Our Show Quality	Flying Ability	Origin
83%	Medium	Good	Watch	Excellent Color, Good Type	None	USA

Broody Ducks

Any experienced waterfowl owner has seen the signs of their females going broody. To new owners, however, it can be alarming. We regularly receive frantic phone calls saying that their females have started behaving strangely and that they do not know what to do.

Broodiness is basically a biological clock that tells a female bird that it is time to sit on her eggs full time. When she lays eggs, she is not broody as she does not sit continuously on the eggs. She merely lays her eggs in the nest and then leaves. Once she has a full next of eggs, she will start sitting on the eggs to hatch them. Only in extreme instances will a female become broody without eggs in the nest. During this time she leaves her nest once a day to eat, drink, and do her business. As it is her instinct to protect her eggs, she will become territorial and grumpy. This will continue until the eggs hatch.

Most birds that become broody take care of themselves while on the nest, only leaving once or twice a day to eat and bathe. As such, they are more susceptible to predators, mites, ants, and other bugs and pests. In extreme cases of those that continue to sit on eggs that will not hatch they run the risk of malnutrition, dehydration, and even death.

If you think your bird will go broody, it is important to encourage her to nest in a safe place. This can be done by providing nesting boxes in advance. Waterfowl have a tendency of choosing a spot for their nest and sticking to it even if the nest is moved. (We had a customer call us once at her wits end. Her goose had built a nest in the middle of a high traffic walkway and was plugging up a pipe. We told her to move the nest since she did not want to destroy it, but when she did the goose rebuilt the nest in the exact same place as before!) Chris and Mike Ashton suggest in ‘The Domestic Duck’ to leave the bird alone while she is sitting and to separate her from any males. To help with exercise, Dave Holderread in ‘Storey’s Guide to Raising Ducks’ suggests placing food and water just out of reach in order to entice her to leave the nest in order to take care of her needs. We suggest switching from a layer feed to a grower feed while she is broody. In the situation that a bird goes broody, but there is no possible way for the eggs to hatch (no males in the flock), it is possible to slip fertile eggs under her or even ducklings/goslings and trick her into thinking the eggs have hatched.

There are some instances in which you do not want your bird to remain broody such as when they go broody without eggs or you rely on her for egg production. Once they start sitting, they stop laying. The best way we find to stop brooding is to take away any eggs and destroy the nest. To discourage her from attempting to make another nest, make sure there are no materials available to her to make a nest. In large-scale turkey farms they have small pens in the laying buildings that have cement or wire floors in which they put their broody hens. After they appear to have lost their broody instinct and no longer want to sit, which can take about 3-4 days, they are returned to the rest of the flock.

We find there are some breeds that are broodier than others. Sebastapol geese are the worst of the bunch on our farm, followed by the African and Buff. On the duck side, the Cayuga seem to be the broodiest followed by the Rouen. On the opposite end, we do not really know who is less broody out of our geese, but our Runner are the least likely ducks to be broody.

A bird going broody is perfectly natural and some breeds can be more broody than others. There are steps you can take to help them through it or to stop it. Hopefully these guides will help you with your broody birds.

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.

Khaki Campbell

The Khaki Campbell was first bred in the late 1800s by Adele Campbell in Gloucestershire, England. She had crossed her Fawn and White Indian Runners with Rouens in order to make a breed with exceptional egg laying abilities with larger bodies. Wanting the then popular buff color, she tried to breed her original Campbells with Penciled Runners. She did not get the buff color she wanted, but the color she got was similar to the khaki color used in British army uniforms so the ducks became Khaki Campbells.

The newly dubbed Khaki Campbell was introduced to the public in 1898 and made its way to the United States in 1929 thanks in part to Perry Fish of Syracuse, New York. They became a part of the American Standard of Perfection in 1941, despite the fact their numbers had languished for several years. This changed in the 1970’s when the Khaki Campbell population increased due to social movements to return to the land and duck egg demand increased due to Vietnamese immigrants after the Vietnam War.

 

The Khaki Campbell is a light weight bird, around 3½ to 4½ pounds, and a very prolific layer. In 1920 Aalt Jansen from the Netherlands started breeding Khaki Campbel
l imported from England. With careful breeding and testing, Jansen was able to produce a strain that averaged 335 to 340 eggs per duck per laying year. With a flock of 50,000 that is 16.75 million eggs per year which was extraordinary at the time. The Jansen flock was eventually picked up by the Kortlang family in England. John Metzer has visited the Kortlang farm and our own Khaki Campbells have some Kortlang blood in them.

Jansen Farms Letter Header April 15, 1978

Breed	Temperament	Weight	Egg Production	Mothering	Bluish Eggs	Egg Size
Khaki Campbell	Nervous	3.5 - 4.5 pounds	165-240/year	Good	<5%	75-85 grams
Fertility	APA Class	Foraging Ability	Conservation Status	Our Show Quality	Flying Ability	Origin
87%	Light	Very Good	Watch	Fairly Good	Maybe	England

Mallard Ducks

The most popular and well-known duck is probably the Mallard. They can be found just about anywhere in the world. Mallards are so common that when most think of a duck, they imagine a Mallard.

The Mallard is the origin of all domestic duck breeds other than the Muscovy. According to Charles Darwin, of all wild ducks, only the male Mallard has the distinctive curl in the tail feathers. As all male domestic ducks have these curly feathers, he came to the conclusion that all domestic breeds originated from the Mallard. From the big, meaty Pekin to the skinny, upright Runner duck - their ancestor is the Mallard breed.

They are a very popular hunting bird as they are so abundant throughout the US. Their meat is considered very flavorful.

They can lay between 60 to 120 eggs a year on a farm. In the wild they will lay 10-15 eggs in a nest. If their first brood is raised early or their nest is destroyed, they can lay a second set of eggs. Compared to domestic breeds their egg production is low, but their fertility is one of the best we have - about 90%.

Mallards are beautiful birds. Females are a speckled brown, but the males sport striking green heads, a white collar around the neck, gray on the belly, and cinnamon chests when they are adults. However, until males start to get their colorful feathers at 12 weeks of age, they are the same coloring as the females. By 16 weeks the males are fully feathered and retain these colors until the end of the breeding season when they molt into more drab, less brightly colored feathers. After 3-4 months, their beautiful feathers grow back and these are retained until their molt the next summer.

Today, the Mallard is considered an invasive wild species in some areas as it is able to mate with other indigenous ducks thereby producing new hybrids and eventually diluting the pure native breed until purebreds are rare. Wildlife authorities in both Hawaii and Florida do not allow the importation of Mallards in fear of them hybridizing their native duck population. In Hawaii, the native duck is the Koloa duck which is on the endangered list, and in Florida it is the Mottled duck.

The vast majority of wild Mallards migrate. In the summer they can be found in the northern parts of the US and all of Canada. When fall arrives and food becomes scarce, they fly south to more temperate climates such as the southern US and parts of Mexico. Come spring, they again return to their nesting grounds.

This migration pattern can be divided in to four different flyways or flight paths: Pacific, Central, Mississippi, and Atlantic Flyways. Scientists believe they use a combination of polarized light, stars, and landmarks to find their way during migration. Nature’s own GPS!

There are, of course, exceptions. There are plenty of areas that do not have a winter - where the water does not freeze over and there are enough food resources year round. In these areas many Mallards decide to take up year round residence. This includes Hawaii’s Koloa and Florida’s Mottled ducks which are both categorized as non-migratory.

If you release Mallards that have not been hatched and grown in the wild, it is highly unlikely they will migrate. Studies show they go no further than five miles from where they were released. Though your released birds may fly away, the Mallard’s ability to fly and escape predators makes them much more likely to survive than any domestic ducks released into ponds and streams. If, however, you do not want your Mallards to fly, you can trim their wing feathers as show in our feather trimming blog post.

Mallards are beautiful birds. Enjoy them in your pen, barnyard, garden or pond.

Breed	Temperament	Weight	Egg Production	Mothering	Bluish Eggs	Egg Size
Mallard	Calm	2.25-2.5 pounds	60-120/year	Very Good	70%	65-75 grams
Fertility	APA Class	Foraging Ability	Conservation Status	Our Show Quality	Flying Ability	Origin
90%	Bantam	Very Good	Abundant	Too "Chunky"	Very Good	Native to North America

What Causes Runts?

The word ‘runt’ has a lot of negative connotation to it. Runts are thought of as weak and sickly. I’m here to tell you that this is not true! The official Google definition of a runt is “an animal that is smaller than average”. A runt is just a smaller version of the same breed. That doesn’t mean it is sick or weak, just small.

What causes this? Our veterinarian’s theory is that it has to do with the flora in the gut. Everyone has bacteria in their stomach, both good and bad. The good bacteria colonizes in the stomach and helps with digestion. Runts, however, do not seem to have as much good bacteria or it has the wrong kind of bacteria colonizing in its gut. This means that it doesn’t digest its food as well and therefore does not grow as fast as its siblings.

There is a way to fix this. By providing the correct probiotics, runts are capable of catching up in growth with the rest of the flock. You can find probiotic supplement packs at your local feed store or Amazon. The probiotics help to develop the good bacteria in the bird’s gut that will help with digestion and facilitate growth. You can mix this in the communal feed as the extra probiotics may benefit your other birds, too.

Other potential causes include hatching from small eggs, viral infection, genetics, coccidiosis, and bacterial infection during incubation. While these are valid causes, our veterinarian believes they cause far fewer runts than improper bacteria in the gut.

For further information, Andy Schneider, the Chicken Whisperer, has an article in his Chicken Whisperer Magazine that goes further into probiotics for poultry. While this article is about chickens, the same applies to ducks and geese.

The main question is what this means for you. If you are a commercial producer, we suggest culling the runts if only because their growth rate will be off of your expected processing date. For example, Pekin are ready for processing at 7 weeks, but your runt may not catch up until about week 12.

The following picture is from one of our customers, a Hutterite colony in Montana in 2014. They and other colonies order Pekin ducklings by the thousands and you can clearly see in the photo that there were several ducklings that were not growing as fast as the others. They were 4 weeks and 4 days of age for the picture. When it came time for processing at 12 weeks, however, they could not tell which had been the runts!

If your main concern is egg production, a runt’s egg production start will probably be delayed. If the runt is treated, however, and catches up in growth, they should be on time to start laying with the rest of the flock.

Both the meat and eggs are still good to eat. Remember, a runt is simply smaller.

Whether your birds are pets or not, make sure you keep them all fed, watered, and warm. It will take time for them to catch up in growth, but it will be worth it in the end.

Pekin Ducks

Pekin Ducklings

The Pekin duck has a long history with records in China going as far back as the 1300s. It was introduced to Great Britain in 1872 and then the United State in 1873. It has since taken over the US market as the go-to commercial meat duck.

The Pekin was bred for its meat, but can be considered a very good egg layer, too. Averaging 8 to 12 pounds in weight, it can lay 150 to 200 eggs per year, making it a great multi-purpose duck.

They are typically processed at six to seven weeks of age with its breast filet being about 21% of the carcass. As such, it has become a very popular commercial duck with a fast growth time and excellent feed conversion (only 2.4 pounds of feed per pound of live body weight gain). In culinary circles, it is the main ingredient for roasted Peking duck.

Female and male Pekin

The dinner table is not the only place the Pekin has become famous. The Aflac duck is a Pekin which originally came from our farm and the
was also the inspiration behind Donald Duck.

We have two names for our Pekin: the Pekin and Grimaud Hybrid Pekin. The Pekin and the Grimaud Hybrid Pekin are the exact same bird, exact same price, just under different names. We did this because some people know what a Pekin is, but not a Grimaud Hybrid, while others may want the Grimaud Hybrid specifically.

The Grimaud Hybrid is named as such because we purchase day-old breeders from Frimaud Freres in France every four months. It is called a hybrid since the Grimaud Hybrid is produced by crossing two strains of Pekin, one strain bred for high meat production and one strain bred for high egg production. By crossing females from the egg laying strain with the males from the meat production strain, you hatch a lot of ducklings that can be grown for meat.

Outside of the commercial market, advertisement, and entertainment industries, the Pekin is a very popular duck among kids and 4-H groups. It does well as a meat class bird at the county fair and is an amazing addition for any backyard hobbyist.

Breed	Temperament	Weight	Egg Production	Mothering	Bluish Eggs	Egg Size
Pekin	Calm	8-12.25 pounds	150-200/year	Poor	<2%	90-100 grams
Fertility	APA Class	Foraging Ability	Conservation Status	Our Show Quality	Flying Ability	Origin
89%	Heavy	Fair	Abundant	Meat Class Only	None	China

Information from our Duck Comparison Table