Indian Runner duck farming is a very common and popular business. Because this breed is highly productive and is very common throughout the world. The breed is native to the Indian-sub-continent and was found on the Indonesian islands of Bali, Java and Lombok.
Although the name of this breed is ‘Indian Runner’, but there is no evidence that they came originally from India. And the breed was probably originated from the East Indies – Java, Lombok and Malaya.
The term ‘Indian’ may well be fanciful, denoting a loading port of the transport by ‘India-men’ sailing ships of the East India Company. And such misname happened with many other waterfowl breeds imported into the America and Europe. For example, the African goose (which is actually not from Africa), the Muscovy duck (which is actually not from Moscow) and the Black East Indian duck (which is actually not from India).
The Indian Runner duck is a very old breed and it has a long history as evidenced by ancient Javan Temple carvings. Which indicates that the Indian Runner type ducks existed in Indo China, 2000 years ago. And people in this area have been raising ducks for hundreds of years. And they trained their ducks to forage on the paddy fields and look for grain, weed seeds, insects, snails, small reptiles, larvae etc.
The Indian Runner duck became popular in America and Europe towards the end of the 19th Century, as a good egg laying duck breed. And today the breed is still a very good eggs layer.
Today, the Indian Runner ducks are mainly raised for their eggs production. And many other good modern duck breeds have been created from the Indian Runner ducks.
However, the Indian Runner ducks are excellent egg layers. They generally lay up to 250 eggs per year. So starting a commercial Indian Runner duck farming business for eggs production can be profitable. And you can also sell the ducks for meat after they have stopped laying eggs.