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The halcyon days of late summer |
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Written by Nigel
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Friday, 05 September 2008 |
As the sun lifts above the misty horizon, it lights up the golden stubble in the fields to bring a look of late summer to the countryside. Down by the river green keys hang in the ash trees and sloe berries are ripening in the hedge. Bees, hoverflies and other insects search for nectar in the white flower heads of the aromatic yarrow, and two bright red Admiral butterflies with crimson stripes flashing across their dark wings alight on a thistle head. Blue damselflies dart over the river and the deep pink Great Willowherb and the pale pink of the Himalayan Balsam are all in full flower on the bank.
 At the bottom of the garden under the old apple tree a blackbird with her brood are feeding on the windfalls. In the barn the swallows have gone. I never saw them gather on the roofs and telephone wires. Last year there were dozens all lined up preening themselves before they left for Southern Africa. This year they all disappeared without saying goodbye. It puzzles me. There is an emptiness around the place when the swallows decide to leave. An emptiness that is more pronounced this year when they went silently and suddenly. I hope this is not some kind of ill omen, a portent of bad weather or an early winter perhaps. They had a good year here. Two broods of four successfully raised and fledged.
In the barn there are half a dozen young Myskankor just beginning to feather up and one of the ducks is still broody. She’s sat on eight eggs that are due to hatch in a couple of weeks. The Ölandsk Dvaärghöns are just coming into their adult plumage. The masses of white are breaking up into spots and speckles. They are more than fulfilling their potential. I may be biased but I think they are top quality birds. I owe a real debt of thanks to Kurt who helped me locate them. They may be maturing quickly but I don’t think I’ll see them start laying much before February now. The days are drawing in, and short days don’t encourage hens to start laying.
The Gul Anka [Yellow Ducks] however have started laying again. I have the first batch of ten eggs in one incubator and I’m collecting a second batch. These are one of the most threatened of Native Swedish breeds and Steph and I are anxious to make sure they survive. The Lanthönsklubben [The Swedish Native Poultry Society] are doing some sterling work in this regard. As my Swedish has improved I’ve managed to translate are more detailed history of them
| The Swedish Yellow Duck
 The first mention of a native Swedish duck in a yellow coloured variety was in 1871. By the 1950s, it was the second most popular breed in Sweden, kept primarily for egg production. By the 1970s it was considered extinct but a small breeding population was discovered in Billinge, a small village in Skåne. Tyra Johansson at Trumpetar Bostället had kept the breed from extinction. It is from the small flock in Billinge [about five hundred meters up the E13 from us] that all the Yellow Ducks registered in the Gene Bank were bred. There has been some increase in numbers thanks mainly to the efforts of the Svenska Lanthönsklubben, though the Yellow Duck population is still small and it is considered one of the most endangered of Swedish land races.
The Yellow Duck was originally bred by Måns Eriksson of Svalöv and were called Svalövanka [literally Svalöv ducks]. He is reputed to have bred them because of complaints about his blue ducks not being a consistent colour and because of this some people doubted they were pure Swedish Blues. Genetically Blue is often a dilution of black and breeding a blue duck to a blue duck gives 50% Blue 25% Black and 25% Splash [i.e. a double dilution]. After the complaints he decided to breed his own race that was a better colour. He started crossing his blue ducks with a trio of crude yellow multicoloured ducks [sometimes described as English Khaki Campbells] he had bought locally in Mölle. In a Swedish Poultry magazine in 1940 he wrote that he had also used “a white male from a different breed”. From the very outset the Blue and the Yellow Ducks had Swedish land race origins. The first breed standard for the Yellow Duck was adopted in 1919.
The Yellow Duck has a rectangular body that is medium in width. The head is medium sized. The line of the back is slightly convex. It has a medium length neck and a horizontal rather than an upright posture. The colouring can vary from pale yellowish to a dark brown with the wing and tail feathers being a lighter colour than the rest of the body. The females are almost always the same colour throughout. The males have a darker grey\brown tones to the head and neck. The beak is greenish blue in males and brownish blue in females and the legs are orange.
Like all land race breeds it is well adapted to its environment and has good resistance to common diseases. The Lanthönsklubben consider it vital that these characteristics are maintained.
The Yellow Duck isn’t the ultimate utility duck, but it combines good laying ability with good meat production. The yellow lays better than Blue but is considered to be slightly smaller. Though recent census weights recorded by the Lanthönsklubben show that in recent years the Yellow has in fact been the same if not slightly larger than the Blue.
They lay around eighty to one hundred and fifty white eggs per year. Like all land race breeds they are not naturally broody, but if given a quiet and secluded spot they do manage to hatch around 25 to 50%.
Males weigh around 3.0 to 4.0kg and females 2.5 to 3.5kg |
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