Harteman Wildfowl - Mallard duck

Mallard duck

Mating mallards. Photo © Jan Harteman

Anas platyrhynchos
Alternative: Ringneck duck, Greenhead
Dutch: Wilde eend
German: Stockente
French: Canard colvert

Text by Dan Cowell
GBWF.org

When most people are asked to name a wild species of duck, the most common response is Mallard. The Mallard is, without a doubt, the world's most popular duck, familiar to even those who are not aviculturists or birders. It is the ancestor of all domestic breeds (with the exception of the Muscovy) and can be found throughout the Northern Hemisphere. They are extremely adaptable and can be seen on just about every type of water, from city parks to farm ponds to big rivers. At the Kansas City Zoo, "wild" Mallards are often seen stealing food from dishes on exhibits and begging for snacks from visitors.

The drakes are often called Greenheads, the most recognizable feature is the drake's white neck-ring and glossy green head. The breast is dark brown and the rest of the body is gray. The drake has a bright yellow bill and orange legs and feet. Drakes also have the "curly-tail", a feature seen in all domestic ducks descendant of mallards. The hen is drab in comparision, being mostly mottled brown and black. Her bill is darker, and her legs and feet are orange as in the drake. Both sexes have a metallic blue wing speculum that is borded both in front and back by narrow bands of white and black.

The Mallard is, perhaps the easiest duck to propagate in captivity. There are even Mallard farms here in the US that mass-produce thousands each year. A hen will nest just about anywhere. When I lived out on a farm a few years back, we had a mallard hen that built a nest and raised a healthy clutch of duklings, all under a cattle feeder. I guess she felt she had all the food she wanted right there on top of her!

Our hens would start laying as soon as warmer weather arrived, even before in some cases! A clutch consists of 7 to 12 greenish eggs that hatch in 28 days. The ducklings are strong and very easy to raise. They grow quickly and can fly at about 7 weeks.

Mallards will cross with just about every member of the genus Anas, and will even do so in the wild, hybrids with Pintail are commonly seen. They are not picky and will often mate with several hens. If you have the space, I would advise housing your mallards apart from your other waterfowl species, particularly the smaller species such as the teal. There are no special rules to follow rasing mallards, they are very simple to keep and breed. Some may not even consider the mallard an ornamental duck, but since they are so popular, I felt I should include them within these pages.

As expected with such an extensive range, the mallard has several subspecies. I don't know how many of these subspecies are kept in captivity, but I will list the ones I know here for general purposes. If you would like to add more information about a particular subspecies, please let me know.

The Greenland Mallard (A. p. conboschas) is larger than A. p. platyrhynchos and somewhat lighter in color as well. The breed and winter entirely on Greenland's coasts. I am unsure if this bird has ever been kept in captivity or not.

The Mexican Duck (A. p. diazi) resmbles a Mallard hen and are similar in size. It is native to most of Mexico and a few maybe seen in the Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico. Many of the Mexican Ducks north of the Rio Grande have crossed with platyrhynchos, that there are very few pure diazi north of Mexico.