Rooster laying on eggs in nest box??

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OK so I've been watching them this morning. I wanted to make sure he wasn't bothering her while she was laying. When she went into the nesting box, he stood outside on the stoop and watched her for a few minutes. Then, he crawled into the box next to hers and layed down the entire time. When she finished and got out, he got out. When she started with her egg song, he started with his version. Lol

I am simply amazed by a chickens behavior. I had no idea what I was missing all these years.
 
That is the cutest thing ever. Sounds like he is in love =) It is really sweet since she was getting beat up and now they are both so close.
 
I'll have to do some searching and see if I can find the thread, but someone on this board did a series of tests with several roosters, and found that this behavior was extremely common when you isolated a single hen and rooster (or two hens and a rooster) - the proposed rationale was that if there's only one hen, it is reproductively advantageous for the rooster to guard all the young - when you get up to several hens, it is better for the rooster to play the field, and give some attention to all the hens - basically it's a numbers game.

If he dotes on one hen when he has many, he loses some of them. It's him maximizing his reproductive success.
 
CrazyTalk said:
Here we go:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/882368/what-to-look-for-in-a-broody-rooster
Click to expand...

WOW! Thanks! That looks like it's going to be a great read!!
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