Domestic Duck (Pekin Duck)

• GeneralIt descends from the mallard; the Pekin variety reached the United States in 1873 and dominates poultry farming today.
• Whole-genome sequencing indicates that every domestic duck except the Muscovy comes from a single domestication event of the mallard during the Neolithic, followed by rapid selection towards meat or laying lineages.
• It was probably domesticated in South-East Asia, very possibly in southern China, by the rice-farming ancestors of today's South-East Asian peoples.
• The oldest written records are Chinese texts from the centre of the country dating from around 500 BC; there is hardly any archaeological record, so the exact date of domestication is unknown.
• Almost every Pekin duck in the Western world descends from nine birds taken from China to New York in 1873.
• The feathers stay dry thanks to the preen gland, and the duck preens by spreading that wax over the whole plumage several times a day: a duck that cannot preen loses its waterproofing within days.
• In South-East Asia integrated rice-duck farming is practised: the flocks work the paddies eating insects and weeds and fertilising the water, replacing herbicides and insecticides.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat and environment

Farms, ponds, rice paddies and urban parks around the world

Sexual maturity

6 months

Gestation / incubation

28 days of incubation

Litter / clutch size

10 eggs

Sources consulted: EFSA 2023, Welfare of ducks, geese and quail on farm (Scientific Opinion) · secuenciación de genoma completo de anátidas domésticas · Wikipedia (Domestic duck, Domestic Muscovy duck, Mulard) · Universidad de Córdoba (Colombia), caracterización morfométrica de Cairina moschata domestica