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Miniature
Crested;
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Names
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Also known as Le
canard Huppe' in France/Belgium. Ciuffate in
Italy
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Country Of
Origin;.
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........ Great
Britain
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Carriage;
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similar to the
Campbell;upright carriage and a long, broad
body
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Purpose;...
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.......Eggs../
Exhibition
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Egg
Colour
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;
..................... eggs white
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Egg
Numbers
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.............100+
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Breed
Defects. .
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. . . .Any
colour is permitted. Defects are thus split crests
or deformity rather than colour breed
points
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Incubation:
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. . . . . . .28
days.
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Breed
Hints....
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****.Not a
beginners breed ****
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Weights;
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4 to 6 pounds/
drake is 3.2kg duck is 2.7kg.
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Breed
Tip
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Kept as pair or
trio
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Info
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There is also a
Crested Miniature that was developed in Britain in
the 1980s /90s also a crested call
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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.
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.
CRESTED;BANTAM
Ducks;.......Breed
Info'
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HICKS WATERFOWL WORLD
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OSWESTRY
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Tel 01691 655 635
weekends
Tel 07818 036 118
weekdays
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Most colours
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Alan McKee
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ANTRIM
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Tel 028 256 651 284.
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Rosemary Sharpe
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MONMOUTH
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Tel 01600 713868
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CRESTED;CALL..........
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John Soper
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HAMPSHIRE
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Tel 01256 850 355
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Mrs E Davies
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Pembrokeshire
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Tel 01437 532 585
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Please note that photographs and text on this site
belong to the Domestic Waterfowl Club of Great Britain. They
should not be reprinted (commercially) without prior
permission but are freeely available for educational
purposes and can be printed up for classroom use; we do not
have printed fact sheets/booklets for sale etc but can
occasionally email uncompressed digital images.
email rosking@domestic-waterfowl.co.uk
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