John and Sylvia Soper

One evening when I was travelling home from work I found a duck run over in the road. Stopping my car I found five ducklings huddled around the mother and managed to catch three of them. I took them home and we reared them under a light bulb in my garage; not really knowing what I was doing. At that time our hobby was wine making at which we achieved top honours in our wine club. We had been looking for a new hobby, and that’s how we found one.

We had been looking for a house and a piece of land with water as we had already decided to keep wildfowl. This was about 20 years ago. With our new home we inherited Muscovies and Khaki Campbells (three of each) and then decided to buy some wildfowl which we thought we could show but on finding out we couldn’t we went to Stoneleigh Rare Breeds auction and bought a trio of Grey Calls. This was sixteen years ago. The following year we went back and bought Silver Calls and Apricot Calls. That got us really hooked on Calls.

Then a lady from our village brought us in a trio of Lavender Pekins. By this time we had joined the Hants & Berks Poultry Club and Mr. Hatcher said “You must show Lavender Pekins because there are not many of them.” Which we did at the Newbury Agricultural Show and we showed our ducks at the same time. This was when the poultry section re-started at Newbury Agricultural Show.

Today we have 180 stock Call Ducks in Greys, Whites, Apricots, Silvers, Blacks, Yellow Bellies, Chocolates, Khakis, Buffs, Blue Bib, Butterscotch, Dark Silver, Dusky Grey, Magpie, Pied and several new colours that we have been working on with other call breeders. We also have about 60 Pekins (chicken) in Lavender, Mottled, Columbian, Silver Wheaten, Yellow Cuckoo and Lavender Cuckoo, and a number of Belgian D’Uccles & Belgian D’Anvers in Millefleur, Porcelain mainly and a few other colours. The Belgian’s are a relatively new branch of our hobby.

We are also very successful at egg showing within the Hants & Berks Club and therefore keep Welsummers and Marans particularly for this.

Over several years we have imported Blacks, Whites and Greys from Holland; Greys from Germany and from America (on an importation that was very educational) Butterscotch, Chocolate, Khaki, Pastel (Apricot), Buff, American Pencilled (Pied), Whites and Greys.

I have travelled to the Continent and America on a number of occasions and have built up many contacts which has been very useful in putting me in touch with the top breeders of waterfowl and chicken. Both my wife and I enjoy our hobby immensely and this has passed to our grandchildren. Our oldest granddaughter has been showing Columbian Pekins for the last 7 years and does very well with them. Recently our second oldest granddaughter has become interested and now loves showing her Yellow Cuckoo Pekin called “Phillip”.

Just think all our adventures started with three Mallard ducklings – all of which turned out to be drakes!!