Golden Cascade
Duck
The Golden Cascade is a modern American breed, developed by waterfowl breeder Dave Holderread in Oregon in 1979 and named for its golden plumage and the Cascade range. It was designed around one clever trick: the colour comes from a sex-linked recessive gene, so a Golden Cascade drake crossed with almost any non-buff female produces ducklings that can be sexed by down colour on hatch day — darker are males, lighter are females. Beyond the auto-sexing it is a genuinely productive dual-purpose duck, laying at near-Campbell rates while growing fast enough to be worth processing. It is calm, hardy and rarely broody, and being unrecognised by the APA it is kept as a working homestead bird rather than a show breed.
Weight
How to spot it
- Drake plumage
- Mallard pattern with a brownish head carrying more-or-less satin green sheen, white neck ring, chestnut chest, cream or tannish underbody
- Female plumage
- Fawn or buff overall, most feathers penciled or center-marked with brown, with noticeable facial stripes
- Wing speculum
- Satin-green or brown in both sexes
- Ducklings
- Typical mallard pattern in fawn-buff or brown with golden highlights; sexable by down colour at hatch when a Cascade drake is mated to almost any other breed
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1 provider currently lists Golden Cascade.
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