Clay models of ducks found in China dating back to 4000 BC may indicate the domestication of ducks took place there during the Yangshao culture. Even if this is not the case, domestication of the duck took place in the Far East at least 1500 years earlier than in the West. Lucius Columella, writing in the first century BC, advised those who sought to rear ducks to collect wildfowl eggs and put them under a broody hen, because when raised in this way, the ducks "lay aside their wild nature and without hesitation breed when shut up in the bird pen". Despite this, ducks did not appear in agricultural texts in Western Europe until about 810 AD, when they began to be mentioned alongside geese, chickens, and peafowl as being used for rental payments made by tenants to landowners.

How long have ducks possibly been in domesticated domicile with humans?