29-439: The wild duck is the non-domesticated ancestor of the domestic duck . Wild duck may refer to: Domestic duck Domestic ducks (mainly mallard , Anas platyrhynchos domesticus , with some Muscovy ducks , Cairina moschata domestica ) are ducks that have been domesticated and raised for meat and eggs . A few are kept for show, or for their ornamental value. Most varieties of domesticated ducks, apart from
58-552: A 1941 children's picture book by Robert McCloskey, tells the story of a pair of mallards who decide to raise their family on an island in the lagoon in Boston Public Garden. It won the 1942 Caldecott Medal for its illustrations. The Disney cartoon character Donald Duck , one of the world's most recognizable pop culture icons, is a domestic duck of the American Pekin breed. The domestic duck features in
87-516: A businessman named McGrath in the United States. The birds were loaded at Shanghai but had been hatched in Beijing . Nine of them – six hens and three drakes – survived the voyage, which took 124 days and reached New York City on 13 March 1873. Five of the surviving birds were dispatched to McGrath but were eaten before they reached him. Palmer's four birds became the foundation stock of
116-633: A cluster that was sister to the White Pekin duck (a breed derived from ducks domesticated in China), while Muscovy ducks are from another genus. Muscovy duck Other breeds White Pekin Assam duck Other Indian breeds ( Kuttanad , Keeri , Sanyasi ) Ducks have been farmed for thousands of years. They are reared principally for meat, but also for duck eggs . Duck husbandry is simplified by aspects of their behaviour, including reliable flocking and
145-538: A range of ancient artefacts , which revealed that they were a fertility symbol. [REDACTED] Media related to Domesticated ducks at Wikimedia Commons [REDACTED] Duck at the Wikibooks Cookbook subproject White Pekin The Pekin or White Pekin is an American breed of domestic duck , raised primarily for meat . It derives from birds brought to the United States from China in
174-539: A single domestication event of mallards during the Neolithic , followed by rapid selection for lineages favouring meat or egg production. They were probably domesticated in Southern China around 2000 BC – by the rice paddy -farming ancestors of modern Southeast Asians – and spread outwards from that region. There are few archaeological records, so the date of domestication
203-455: Is often played by an incubator . However, young ducklings rely on their mothers for a supply of preen oil to make them waterproof; a chicken does not make as much preen oil as a duck, and an incubator makes none. Once the duckling grows its own feathers, it produces preen oil from the sebaceous gland near the base of its tail. In East and Southeast Asia, rice-duck farming is widely practised. This polyculture yields both rice and ducks from
232-410: Is smooth and broad and does not show a pronounced keel . The head is large and rounded, and the neck is thick. The plumage is creamy white, the legs and feet are a yellowish orange. The beak is yellow, fairly short, and almost straight. The American Pekin is raised almost exclusively for meat . In the United States, more than half of all ducks raised for slaughter are of this breed. Numbers in
261-792: Is unknown; the earliest written records are in Han Chinese writings from central China dating to about 500 BC. Duck farming for both meat and eggs is a widespread and ancient industry in Southeast Asia. Wild ducks were hunted extensively in Egypt and other parts of the world in ancient times, but were not domesticated. Ducks are documented in Ancient Rome from the second century BC, but descriptions – such as by Columella – suggest that ducks in Roman agriculture were captured in
290-525: The Royal Ballet's The Tales of Beatrix Potter . It is the story of how Jemima, a domestic duck, is saved from a cunning fox who plans to kill her, when she tries to find a safe place for her eggs to hatch. The Story About Ping is a 1933 American children's book by Marjorie Flack , illustrated by Kurt Wiese , about a domestic duck lost on the Yangtze River . Make Way for Ducklings ,
319-612: The American Pekin; by July 1873, his three hens had laid more than three hundred eggs. The Pekin was included in the first edition of the Standard of Perfection , published in 1874 by the new American Poultry Association . It was soon in widespread production for slaughter. Until that time the duck most commonly raised for meat had been the Cayuga , which had the disadvantage of dark feathering, so that any fluff remaining on
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#1732782728499348-610: The Muscovy duck and hybrids, are descended from the mallard, which was domesticated in China around 2000 BC. Duck farming is simplified by their reliable flocking behaviour, and their ability to forage effectively for themselves. Over 80% of global duck production is in China. Breeds such as White Pekin are raised for meat, while the prolific Indian Runner can produce over 300 eggs per year. In East and Southeast Asia, polycultures such as rice-duck farming are widely practised:
377-464: The Philippines, balut – a fertilised duck egg at about 17 days of development, boiled and eaten with salt – is considered a delicacy and is sold as street food . The domestic duck has appeared numerous times in children's stories. Beatrix Potter 's The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck was published by Frederick Warne & Co in 1908. One of Potter's best-known books, the tale was included in
406-483: The United States alone are in the tens of millions. The birds are large-framed, hardy and fast-growing – they may reach a body-weight of more than 3.5 kg (8 lb) in seven weeks. They have a high feed conversion ratio , are calm-tempered and fertile, and their eggs have a high rate of hatchability. The white feathers make the carcass easy to clean after being plucked. A number of commercial strains have been developed, including types kept solely as layers. From
435-549: The United States were crossed with birds of the British Aylesbury breed, which led to birds with a more horizontal stance. The Pekin in the United Kingdom derives from birds imported from Germany from about 1970. The American Pekin is large and solidly built. The body is rectangular as seen from the side and is held at about 40º to the horizontal; the tail projects above the line of the back. The breast
464-659: The ability to forage effectively for themselves in wetlands and water bodies. Most breeds of duck may lay some 200 eggs per year, though the Indian Runner may produce over 300 eggs annually. The females of many breeds of domestic duck are unreliable at sitting their eggs and raising their young. Exceptions include the Rouen duck and especially the Muscovy duck . It has been a custom on farms for centuries to put duck eggs under broody hens for hatching; nowadays this role
493-542: The carcass was easily seen; the white-feathered Pekin was preferable. Other birds of the same type were imported to the United Kingdom in 1872 and from there soon reached Germany, where they gave rise to the German Pekin , a distinct and separate breed. In Germany, the Chinese ducks were cross-bred with upright white ducks brought from Japan by Dutch ships, resulting in birds with a steep body angle; those taken to
522-424: The dangerous H5N1 strain of avian influenza . Ducks are subject to ectoparasites such as lice and endoparasites such as trematodes , cestodes , and acanthocephalans . A high parasitic load can result in a substantial reduction in the ducks' growth rate. In 2021 approximately 4.3 billion ducks were slaughtered for meat worldwide, for a total yield of about 6.2 million tonnes; over 80% of this production
551-459: The duck has been eaten as food. Usually only the breast and thigh meat is eaten. It does not need to be hung before preparation, and is often braised or roasted, sometimes flavoured with bitter orange or with port . Peking duck is a dish of roast duck from Beijing, China, that has been prepared since medieval times. It is today traditionally served with spring pancakes , spring onions and sweet bean sauce . In France, ducks are used for
580-594: The ducks assist the rice with manure and by eating small pest animals, so that the same land produces rice and ducks at once. In culture, ducks feature in children's stories such as The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck , and in Sergei Prokofiev 's musical composition Peter and the Wolf ; they have appeared in art since the time of ancient Egypt , where they served as a fertility symbol . Domestic ducks appear from whole-genome sequencing to have originated from
609-796: The mallard's territorial behaviour, and are less aggressive than mallards. Despite these differences, domestic ducks frequently mate with wild mallard, producing fully fertile hybrid offspring. A wild mallard weighs some 1.1 kg (2.4 lb), but large breeds like the Aylesbury may weigh 4.6 kg (10 lb) (and hybrids even more), while small breeds like the Appleyard may be only 0.7 kg (1.5 lb). Those breeds are raised for meat and eggs, while other breeds are purely ornamental, having been selected for their crests, tufts, or striking plumage, for exhibition in competitions. A phylogenomic analysis found that Indian breeds of ducks formed
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#1732782728499638-497: The musical composition Peter and the Wolf , written by the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev in 1936. The orchestra illustrates the children's story while the narrator tells it. In this, a domestic duck and a little bird argue on each other's flight capabilities. The duck is represented by the oboe. The story ends with the wolf eating the duck alive, its quack heard from inside the wolf's belly. Domestic ducks are featured in
667-447: The nineteenth century, and is now bred in many parts of the world. It is often known as the American Pekin to distinguish it from the German Pekin , a distinct and separate breed which derives from the same Chinese stock but has different breeding . Many of these ducks were reared on Long Island , New York , in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from which the breed derived its name Long Island Duck . The mallard
696-511: The production of foie gras de canard . In some cultures the blood of ducks slaughtered for meat is used as food; it may be eaten seasoned and lightly cooked, as in Ireland, or be used as an ingredient, as in a number of regional types of blood soup , among them the czarnina of Poland and the tiết canh of Vietnam. Duck eggs are eaten mainly in Asian countries such as China; in
725-493: The same land; the ducks eat small pest animals in the crop; they stir the water, limiting weeds, and manure the rice. Other rice polycultures in the region include rice-fish-duck and rice-fish-duck- azolla systems, where fish further manure the rice and help to control pests. Domestic ducks have the advantage over other poultry of being strongly resistant to many bird diseases, including such serious conditions as duck plague (viral enteritis). They are however susceptible to
754-454: The time the birds reached the United States, selective breeding of meat birds was mainly directed towards size, strength and rate of growth. More recently, attempts have been made to reduce the proportion of fat in the carcass, even if growth rate and feed conversion ratio are also reduced. Pekin ducks may lay over 150 white eggs per year. They are not good sitters , and eggs may need to be artificially incubated . The American Pekin
783-725: The wild, not domesticated; there was no duck breeding in Roman times, so eggs from wild ducks were needed to start duck farms. Mallards were domesticated in Eurasia. The Muscovy duck was domesticated in Mexico and South America. Most breeds and varieties of domestic duck derive from the mallard , Anas platyrhynchos ; a few derive from Cairina moschata , the Muscovy duck, or are mulards , hybrids of these with A. platyrhynchos stock. Domestication has greatly altered their characteristics. Domestic ducks are mostly promiscuous , where wild mallards are monogamous . Domestic ducks have lost
812-562: Was domesticated in China some 3000 years ago, and possibly much earlier. Force-feeding of ducks is documented from the tenth century, under the Five Dynasties . The Chinese were sophisticated breeders of ducks; among several breeds they created was one named shi-chin-ya-tze (十斤鴨子), which roughly translates to "ten-pound duck", from which the American Pekin derives. In 1872, James E. Palmer of Stonington, Connecticut , loaded fifteen white ducks of this type for shipment to
841-420: Was in China, where more than 3.6 billion ducks were killed, yielding some 4.9 million tonnes of meat. Worldwide production of duck meat was substantially lower than that of chicken – 73.8 billion birds slaughtered, 121.6 million tonnes – but considerably greater than that of goose – about 750 million birds killed for 4.4 million tonnes of meat. Feathers are a by-product of duck farming. Since ancient times,
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