Aylesbury Duck - Decline

Decline

By the time Beatrix Potter's 1908 The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck—about an Aylesbury duck although set in Cumbria—caused renewed interest in the breed, the Aylesbury duck was in steep decline. The duckers of Buckinghamshire had generally failed to introduce technological improvements such as the incubator, and inbreeding had dangerously weakened the breed. Meanwhile, the cost of duck food had risen fourfold over the 19th century, and from 1873 onwards competition from Pekin and Pekin cross ducks was undercutting Aylesbury ducks at the marketplace.

The First World War devastated the remaining duckers of Buckinghamshire. The price of duck food rose steeply while the demand for luxury foodstuffs fell, and wartime restructuring ended the beneficial financial arrangements with the railway companies. By the end of the war small-scale duck rearing in the Aylesbury Vale had vanished, with duck raising dominated by a few large duck farms. Shortages of duck food in the Second World War caused further disruption to the industry, and almost all duck farming in the Aylesbury Vale ended. A 1950 "Aylesbury Duckling Day" campaign to boost the reputation of the Aylesbury duck had little effect; by the end of the 1950s the last significant farms had closed, other than a single flock in Chesham owned by Mr L. T. Waller, and by 1966 there were no duck breeders or rearers of any size remaining in Aylesbury. As of 2010 the Waller family's farm in Chesham remains in business, the last surviving flock of pure Aylesbury meat ducks in the country.

Aylesbury ducks were imported into the United States in 1840, although they never became a popular breed. They were, however, added to the American Poultry Association's Standard of Perfection breeding guidelines in 1876. As of 2011 the breed was listed as critically endangered in the United States by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.