East Indian
DuckRare breedTrue bantamAlso called East India
The Black East Indian is one of the oldest bantam ducks in existence, standardised in Britain in 1865 and admitted to the American standard in 1874, and its origins have nothing to do with the East Indies — the name was almost certainly commercial invention. The whole appeal is the plumage: solid black with an intense beetle-green iridescence that runs over the entire bird, deepest in young drakes and fading toward white flecking as hens age. It lays very few eggs, and the early ones come out with a grey-black sooty coating like a Cayuga's. Kept almost entirely for exhibition and as ornamental pond birds, they are small, shy, flighty and strong fliers, so they need a covered pen and a keeper who does not expect a tame lap duck.
Weight
How to spot it
- Bill
- Black, short and neat
- Carriage
- Close to horizontal, small and compact — under 2 lb
- Plumage
- Solid black with a strong green sheen over the whole body; hens whiten with age
- Legs & feet
- Black to very dark slate
- Look for
- A bantam-sized Cayuga lookalike — same green-black sheen at roughly a quarter the weight
Varieties
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