just wondering... WARNING contains armchair intellectualism

[grawg]

Hmm not sure if I can think on why mallards wern't developed by early europeans... I'm not in the proper armchair and lack a suitable beverage for that sort of "intellectualism"

 

[QuackerJackFarms]

Interesting thread! I'm thinking... maybe chickens eat less? They are better broody's/mothers which would have been important to keep up with a growing human family? (no incubators until late 1800's?) Maybe chickens were easier to get?


Interesting!

 

[v.cyr]

Hmm not sure if I can think on why mallards wern't developed by early europeans... I'm not in the proper armchair and lack a suitable beverage for that sort of "intellectualism"

I am perpetually there, in my head... blame it on reading the wrong books and watching the wrong shows while my mind was young, and impressionable... darn you nova and robert heinlein

 

[grawg]

Found a good read relating to this subject here

It seems to suggest that rice paddies had a key role in the domestication of ducks. That tends to make sense since the chicken would be ill suited to ridding a flooded field of insect pests. In the modern chemical age I think we tend to forget that pesticides are a relatively recent invention.

 

[Tahai]

I believe the reason American society uses chicken eggs over duck is because ducks cannot be kept successfully in the level of confinement that chickens can. Because so many chickens are used for egg production, there is an abundance of extra chicken meat available, and it just became the standard.

Prior to large-scale and commercial farming, there was a larger variety of poultry on the dinner table, although the majority of our ancestors ate considerably less meat than we do.

 

[v.cyr]

Found a good read relating to this subject here

It seems to suggest that rice paddies had a key role in the domestication of ducks. That tends to make sense since the chicken would be ill suited to ridding a flooded field of insect pests. In the modern chemical age I think we tend to forget that pesticides are a relatively recent invention.

your right... good read...
ok so ducks were domesticated in europe and asia independantly... but it seems a little unclear about the earliest domestication, between 10,000 and 3000 years ago... that is a wide margin... so either they have been domesticated longer, or not as long as chickens(domesticated around 6000- 2000 BC according to wikipedia)... so ducks either had a head start and were overtaken, or chickens got the jump on them...

 

[grawg]

"Khaki Campbells gained even more notoriety with the standards established by the Jansen family of Holland who had up to 50,000 ducks laying at a time with egg production averages of 335-340 eggs in 365 days during the 1950s" - Metzer website

Not sure what their housing was like but this tends to suggest that ducks could be housed in a large scale production environment.

 

[v.cyr]

I believe the reason American society uses chicken eggs over duck is because ducks cannot be kept successfully in the level of confinement that chickens can. Because so many chickens are used for egg production, there is an abundance of extra chicken meat available, and it just became the standard.

Prior to large-scale and commercial farming, there was a larger variety of poultry on the dinner table, although the majority of our ancestors ate considerably less meat than we do.

good point...

 

[v.cyr]

"Khaki Campbells gained even more notoriety with the standards established by the Jansen family of Holland who had up to 50,000 ducks laying at a time with egg production averages of 335-340 eggs in 365 days during the 1950s" - Metzer website

Not sure what their housing was like but this tends to suggest that ducks could be housed in a large scale production environment.

that's what... 16,750,000 eggs a year... wow...

 

[larkflying]

My duck books say that plucking waterfowl is an all day, labor intensive task - where plucking chickens is much easier. Also, ducks and geese have mostly dark meat. Right now I think people in the US prefer white meat . . . don't know when that trend changed.