Indian Runners or Runner ducks are a breed of Anas platyrhynchos domesticus, the domestic duck. They stand erect like penguins and, rather than waddling or flying, they run. They were bred on the Indonesian islands of Lombok, Java and Bali. Egg production has been measured at over 173 eggs per year; much higher claims have been made without reliable evidence. The breed arrived in the Western world in the 19th century; they have since been bred to have a wide variety of colours.
Description Indian Runner ducks vary in weight between 1.4 and 2.3 kg (3.1 and 5.1 lb). Their height (from crown to tail tip) ranges from 50 cm (20 in) in small females to about 76 cm (30 in) in the taller males. The erect carriage is a result of a pelvic girdle that is closer to the tail than other breeds of domestic duck. This structural feature allows the birds to walk or run, rather than waddle, as seen with other duck breeds; they do not fly. Indian Runner ducks have a long, wedge-shaped head. The bill blends into the head smoothly being as straight as possible from bean to the back of the skull. The head is shallower than is seen with most other breeds of duck. This effect gives a racy appearance, a breed trait. Eye placement is high on the head. Indian Runners have long, slender necks that smoothly transition into the body. The body is long, slim but round in appearance. The breed is known for its high egg production, but estimates of this vary widely. The Livestock Conservancy give a figure of "over 250 eggs" per year without supporting evidence. Claims of as many as 300 eggs per year were published by American breeders for individual ducks in 1912–1914. Ioan Custura and colleagues in 2021 observed breeding birds at the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Bucharest, stating that egg production was on average 173.74 eggs per bird in Indian Runners, intermediate between their measurements of 189.77 for Khaki Campbells and 120.42 for "Peking ducks".
Origins
Indian Runner ducks are domesticated waterfowl from the archipelago of the East Indies (Indonesia). They appear to be represented in stone sculptures in Java from c. 1000 AD. In 1856, the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace recorded in The Malay Archipelago that the ducks in the Indonesian island of Lombok "walk erect, like penguins".
Rice-duck farming Rice-duck farming is a polycultural practice of raising ducks as well as growing rice on the same land, providing farmers with additional income, while the manure produced by the ducks benefits the rice crop. This system has existed in different forms for centuries in Asian countries including China, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
Breeding in the Western world
Arrival The Runner became popular in Europe and America as an egg-laying variety towards the end of the nineteenth century largely as a result of an undated pamphlet called The India Runner: its History and Description published by John Donald of Wigton between 1885 and 1890. Donald's publication is advertised briefly in The Feathered World, 1895, under the title of "The Indian Runner Duck". Donald describes the pied variety and gives the popular story of the importation into Cumbria (Northwest England) by a sea captain some fifty years earlier. The breed is unusual not only for its high egg production but also for its upright stance and variety of colour genes, some of which are seen in seventeenth-century Dutch paintings by the d’Hondecoeter family and others. Other references to such domestic ducks use the names 'Penguin Ducks' and 'Baly Soldiers'. Harrison Weir's Our Poultry (1902) describes the Penguin Ducks belonging to Mr. Edward Cross in the Surrey Zoological Gardens between 1837 and 1838. These may well have been imported by the 13th Earl of Derby. Darwin describes them (1868) as having elongated "femur and meta-tarsi", contrary to Tegetmeier's assertions. The Cumbrian importations, according to Matthew Smith in 1923, included completely fawn Runners and completely white Runners as well as the pied (fawn-and-white and grey-and-white) varieties. The most successful attempt to import fresh bloodlines was by Joseph Walton between 1908 and 1909. Accounts of these ventures can be found in Coutts (1927) and Ashton (2002). Walton shipped in birds from Lombok and Java, revolutionizing the breeding stock which, according to Donald, had become badly mixed with local birds. Further importations by Miss Chisholm and Miss Davidson in 1924 and 1926 continued to revive the breed.
Development
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