History of Indian Runner Ducks |
Indian Runners came from the East Indies and, as one would expect, they run rather than waddle. The name is fairly explicit, but it does not do justice to one of the most extraordinary of domestic ducks. Often lumped in with the ‘light ducks’, they now have a show section all to themselves. They are unique in the extreme body shape and posture, looking to the inexperienced eye more like hock bottles than normal ducks. Yet it was their utility value as egg layers that brought them and their fame to this country, where they were exhibited in Dumfries in 1876 and Kendal in 1896. Records of stone carvings in Java seem to suggest an origin of a thousand years or more. The Europeans noted them in the mid 19th century, in Malaya (1851) and Lombok, Indonesia, where Alfred Wallace observed in 1856 that! they ‘walk erect, like penguins’1. However, circumstantial evidence would suggest that oriental ducks reached Western Europe much earlier than the nineteenth century. Kenneth Broekman has alerted us to late sixteenth century Dutch records showing that van Houtman’s ship, the Ysselstein, carried a cargo of salted ‘pinguin ducks’. Also a number of Lowland breeds, such as the Huttegem, carry colour genes very similar to the Indian Runners. Examples of these mutations can be seen in seventeenth century Dutch paintings like those of the |
