crested ducks

Crested ducks are basically an aberration appearing in any colour and as such hava mixed history. The crest is essentially a mutation associated with skull deformities and known for hundreds of years. There are those who claim that crested ducks first appeared in Britain, which is unlikely but they were certainly first Shown here and appear in many early poultry books . Genetic mutations appear occasionally all over the world. Selective breeding would then have increased the numbers of birds with the same characteristic. 17th century Dutch paintings show crested ducks on wildfowl such as Melchior d'Hondecoeter (1636 -1695) and Marmaduke Craddock (1660 - 1717) from Somerset in the Uk showed them

The crest is formed from a mass of fatty tissue that emerges through a gap in the cranium.( skull) From this, feathers grow. Crests vary from centrally placed, full crests, rather like powder puffs, to knobbly protuberances with just a few feathers; or the occasional earring when it has 'slipped'. The crested gene can be bred into any breed except Muscovy as one parent crested will breed a percentage of crested offspring .All crested seldom breed successfully but if they do produce better stock. If using a crested female with a large crest watch as the drake uses this as to ' assist ' mating and she can get injured easily. The tuft of feathers on the head, which occasionally appears, having been recognized as a point of attraction, selected and bred for of the off spring many will be plain headed but carry the crested gene so a crested drake will turn any breed crested . . they also have the energy for this so watch out

The crest gene is an incompletely dominant one. ie, if an chick receives a double dose of the gene &endash; one from each parent (homozygous) it will die in the shell. If only one of the parents passes it on (heterozygous) the resulting hatches will be :- 25% will not hatch, 25% will not have crests and 50% will have crests. If a crested heterozygous bird is crossed with an un-crested one, the resulting hatch should be 50% crested and 50% plain. So, as you can see, breeding Crested ducks is challenging and not recommended for beginners; also if the crest is so large as to intefere with normal eating and mating etc it would need to be 'trimmed' to allow the duck a normal life.

Names
Also known as Le canard Huppe' in France/Belgium. Ciuffate in Italy   
Country Of Origin;......... Great Britain   
Purpose;..........Eggs../ Exhibition 
Egg Numbers.............100+ depending on base breed
Breed Defects. .. . . .Any colour is permitted. Defects are thus split crests or deformity rather than colour breed points
Incubation:. . . . . . .28 days.
Breed Hints....****.Not a beginners breed ****   
Weights;
4 to 6 pounds/ drake is 3.2kg duck is 2.7kg.   
Info. .There is also a Crested Miniature that was developed in Britain in the 1980s /90s also a crested call

 The Lethal Crested Gene
This gene is a dominant gene with a lethal variant. If C=crested and p=plain non-crested, it works like this:
Crested Drake =C p (this means that a crested drake in a pen can turn any breed crested)
Crested Duck = C CC Cp
their offspring will be:- pp is a non-crested duckling,....Cp is a crested duckling,..CC (theoretically crested) dies in the shell due to skull deformities.

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/Ducks/Crest/BRKCrestedDucks.html

CRESTED;LARGE Ducks;....Breeders

Tony & Sue Axon, Devon            01404 822 459

Paul Darby & Carol McCouat, West Midlands    01922 449 801

Julie Christopher

Sandra Farrar, Shropshire            01588 650 390
White, Apricot

Frank B. Jones, Cheshire            01270 811 682
White

Alan Kerr, Northern Ireland            01265 741 365

Sandra Watson, Somerset            01458 241 719


CRESTED;BANTAM Ducks;.......Breed Info'

HICKS WATERFOWL WORLD / OSWESTRY / Tel 01691 655 635 weekends
Tel 07818 036 118 weekdays or grahamhickss@hotmail.co.uk

Alan McKee, Antrim                02825 651 284

Rosemary Sharpe, Monmouth            01600 713 868


CRESTED;CALL Ducks;.........Breed Info'

Mrs. E. Davies, Pembrokeshire            01437 532 585

John Soper, Hampshire                01256 850 355



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