The Majestic Rouen

- a flamboyant wild mallard, developed from the farmyards of northern France. Chris Ashton

- Chris Ashton

All of our domesticated ducks (bar the Muscovy) are derived from the mallard – so it makes sense that the earliest European breeds looked rather like the wild duck. In the first Standards book of 1865, produced in the UK, ducks were only described in this natural wild-colour plus the simple mutations of white and black. These Standard descriptions covered the well-known white Aylesbury duck plus the Rouen, Call duck and Black East Indian. Though there is evidence for bibbed, pied and blue colour mutations in the nineteenth century duck population, these had not evolved into standardized colours at this point in time. Contrast this limited list with the chickens in spangles, bars, lacing and pencilling perhaps for many centuries.

A standards book does what its name implies: it sets the accepted description of a breed and colour in domesticated animals (such as horses, dogs and birds). And the Victorians certainly went to town on the Rouen. This breed didn’t stay mallard-sized for long. Although Harrison Weir’s 1853 painting of Rouen ducks (in Wingfield and Johnson) implies that they are about three times larger (6 lbs) than the Indies (2lbs) in the picture, they were soon to grow into the largest domesticated duck at around 12lbs (5.4kg).

Evolution of the breed