Huge, eye-catching and beautiful are just some of the terms that could be used to describe the wonderful exhibition breed of domestic duck the Rouen.
My first time seeing this breed was at the home of Jimmy Fails from outside Greyabbey in County Down.
Jimmy would have been well known for his standard light breed fowl and light domestic waterfowl and when he lived in Holywood, with a stream running along the bottom of his garden, he also kept the Black East Indian Duck breed.
Approximately 50 years ago, while looking around his Greyabbey garden, I saw my first pair of Rouen ducks and I was totally mesmerised by their vibrant colours, size and friendliness as I dropped a few pieces of bread into their pen.
The duck quacked away as if talking to Jimmy as he approached their enclosure and took bread out of his hand. I learned later that he had hand-reared this duck when the bantam hen she hatched under abandoned her.
The drake who came at a later stage was more stand-offish, but kept a close eye on his duck.
I learnt from Jimmy that she had a nest of eggs in their low lying shed and he was going to let nature take its course and let her hatch her own eggs.
This was a magical few moments as I watched what I thought were giant mallard ducks enjoying their bread treats.
Throughout my early years in Northern Ireland I didn’t encounter any other Rouens until Tommy Adams showed a couple of birds at the Balmoral Show in the 1980s as the American-type Pekin duck breed was quite plentiful and would have been regularly seen in shows then.
It wasn’t until the 1990s that Rouens were being regularly exhibited at local shows by Alan McKee, Joe Adams and Artie Faulkner.
As the years went on I noticed that the exhibition Rouen definitely increased in size and depth and as we went through the 2000s the Rouen’s popularity grew, being shown in large numbers and regularly winning best heavy breed duck and champion or reserve champion waterfowl.
That show trend continues today with the Rouen regularly on championship row.
Even at the last Dromore poultry club show in 2022 a Rouen drake exhibited by Francis Murtagh was Reserve Champion Waterfowl and a young Rouen duck bred by Ryan Liggett and exhibited by Jessica McAllister was Champion 2022 bred bird.
Where did they come from?
The Rouen duck originated as a table breed from France named after Rouen, the capital city of Normandy in the north of the country.
The breed was developed to the duck we know today in England, however.
Some great quality Rouen strains were produced in Europe and crossed into the British strains, making them an enormous exhibition breed with the basic colour pattern of wild mallard ducks in both drakes and ducks but more vibrant in colour and darker, better, lacing in the females.
The Rouen (pronounced “Roo-on”) duck is an outstanding show duck breed with a very placid temperament that could be kept by all age groups.
Although they don’t lay huge amounts of eggs, I’ve found that they lay very large white shelled eggs and an occasional duck lays a light green shelled egg.
If you are considering keeping this wonderful duck breed locally, then James Smyth, who can be contacted through Facebook, has a number of quality Rouen ducks at the moment.
This is a breed that definitely will look well in the garden and the more who keep it the greater its chance of survival.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
