THE MAGPIE DUCK

A Grey Magpie duck

Magpies are a cheerful duck breed - they should be active rangers; love swimming; lay lots of green/ blue eggs and have great hatchability. They come in both grey and white and black and white.

Originally bred in Wales relatively recently [around 1920's] to be a dual purpose breed - eggs and meat. Records show that they were capable of laying around 180 eggs a year. Unfortunately, in the past 30 years, so few breeders / owners record egg numbers or select for productivity it is very difficult to ascertain the productivity of birds nowadays.

For the exhibition folk its a real challenge to get the markings just so, and this type of selection has reduced meat and egg qualities enormously,
but if that does not worry you it certainly does not worry the ducks.

As with all the domestic duck breeds there needs to be many more breeders selecting for good egg numbers; size and table size making sure not to lose the breed markings but not being over fussy until we have got some great productivity going.

A meat advantage of the magpie is that there are white feathers on the chest meat.

Tim and Jill Bowis
Kintaline Mill Farm, Benderloch, OBAN Argyll PA37 1QS Scotland
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