Chicken mating thread !!!

[chicken farmer]

Post anything you no about chicken mating,how it works,pictures,questions and more!

 

[Ridgerunner]

The chicken mating ritual

The rooster dances – this shows his interest.

The hen squats – this gets her body on the ground so the weight of the rooster goes through her body, not just her legs. This way the rooster can be quite a bit larger than the hen without his weight injuring her legs.

The rooster hops on and grabs the back of her head. This head grab not only helps him get lined up right to hit the target and helps his balance, it is the signal for the hen to raise her tail out of the way. That opens up the target.

The rooster touched vents and hops off. His part is done.

The hen stands, fluffs up, and shakes. This fluffy shake moves the sperm to a specific container in the area where the egg starts its journey through the hen’s internal egg factory.

There can be a lot of variations to this. Some roosters don’t dance but just grab and hop on. That’s the sign of an immature rooster not confident in himself or a rooster that has not won the respect of the hens. An adolescent will normally mature out of this phase but if a rooster over a year old is still not dancing, it’s not a good sign that he will ever mature.

A lot of time the hen runs away instead of squatting. The rooster may then just ignore the hen but sometime he will chase her. She might squat as soon as he starts chasing or she may really trying to get away. As long as she winds up squatting and he does not physically damage her, it is OK.

The mating ritual is not always just about sex. It can also be about dominance. The one on bottom accepts the dominance of the one on top, either willingly or by force. I haven’t seen it myself but some people report seeing a rooster mount another rooster. I have seen a hen mount a pullet, including touching vents, in a flock without a mature dominant rooster to show her dominance.

Some hens will squat for anything in spurs, but many mature hens expect a rooster to fulfill his flock responsibilities before they accept him as a mate. He should dance for them, treat them to food, break up fights and keep peace in his flock, and keep a watch out for predators. If he doesn’t fulfill the duties of a flock master, they aren’t likely to squat for him.

Young adolescent cockerels have hormones running wild. They want to mate and be dominant. Many a young cockerel has literally lost his head because those hormones were out of control. Immature pullets don’t help either. Cockerels often mature earlier than pullets, so the pullets don’t always understand what is going on. They need to mature enough to do their part too before things settle down. If you can get through that adolescent phase, things normally settle down, but some cockerels and some pullets never mature enough to take their proper place in chicken society.

One last thing. For a rooster to fulfill his duties as flock master, he has to be dominant. How can he break up fights if they turn around and beat the crap out of him? What good does it do to give a warning if no one pays any attention to him? It’s his job to earn that dominance but it is up to the hens to accept that dominance if he earns it. Some roosters never earn it and some hens never give it.

 

[TwoCrows]

Everyone has different ways of dealing with roosters. Lets not argue about it here please. Leave your information about how you may do things and let the person asking the question decide for themselves.

I have deleted and edited some recent posts in this thread. Lets NOT continue this banter here or this thread will be locked.

Thank you for your cooperation.

-Staff

 

[centrarchid]

See link:

Sperm transfer through cloacal kiss. Colloquial terms us to describe include the following: tread, mate, and cover.

Eggs fertilized by a given cloacal kiss start no later than three days after event. One event may be enough to fertilize an entire clutch but multiples are better. I can have a hen mated once every three days and get similar hatch rate to what is realized with continuous exposure involving multiple matings per day. Sperm may remain viable in female's reproductive tract for up to 28 days or more.

 

[TeaChick]

So i just bought RIR 9 hens and a rooster from some one a few miles from me. When he was getting the chickens for me i noticed that all the hens have severe damage on there backs, neck, head, and wings. I know the damage is from mating, and i feel that the previous owner had them in a very small coop (half of a small shed) and a run that was 1.5 feet wide by 7 feet long and only 2 feet high. when i say the damage is bad i mean some of them have dollar bill sized bald spots some almost twice that size. I almost didn't take the birds they looked so bad.

I have 31 RIR, 17 pullet hens in my flock with 13 chicks strait run and a cockerel, all hatched this year. 9 of my hens are laying and my roo is not into mating yet. I have a big coop and a huge pen for the chickens.

I have the 10 chickens i got today in a separate pen from my flock (for disease control safety).

Should i separate the roster from my new hens to let them heal, or will they heal on there own now that they are in a bigger space?

Will my other hens get this much damage from mating or do i have enough space and hen to rooster ratio?

any help and suggestions thanks

I agree with @ChickyChickens .
My hens have gone through the same thing. I wasn't able to process my cockerels before they started mating my hens and I had a one to one ratio for a little while. The nicest girl has had a bare back for most of the summer. I couldn't put a saddle on her b/c of the heat (it's like wearing a sweater vest). Anyway, her back is looking better now that only one roo is trying to mate my 8 hens. Yours might start looking better with the 9 to 1 ratio, but they will heal faster if you remove him completely. The flip side of that coin is that being separated from his girls might cause him more stress than necessary. So, it's completely up to you and how you do things

 

[rfreedlund]

Um, yeah, it will last long......young cockerels go on and on and on and on...

Love it!! You are definitely speaking truth. Lock up the girls!! The hormones are flowing.

 

[thepouts]

I know nothing so I am subbing! Still patiently waiting for my roo to show some interest in his girls...

 

[arnr1530]

my roo just currently went into the mating stage about 3 wks ago at first it was pretty aggressive he would grab the back of their necks and they would scream really loud til he let go then run and hide.... after a wk of this he then started this dance which is the mating dance he dances from foot to foot and then circles them and still grabs the back of their neck about mid last wk they finally started to lay down for him and now they are starting to squat so im hoping for some eggs soon!! i also noticed that he crows a heck of a lot more now that he has started to mate with them!!!
like i said at first it can be pretty ear wrenching and a little rough to watch and hear but once time goes on it gets less angry i guess you could say!! mine are 23 wks this wk!

 

[chicken farmer]

Well roosters "dance" is to show the hens they want to mate,the rooster drags a wings on the ground and walk around them and uselly when a hen puts her head down to drink or eat he will jump on her and mate. Roosters don't have a penis and hens don't have vaginas,they just each have one hole and when the rooster mates he shoots a sperm glob on the hens rear end and and it goes in and fertilizes the egg. The rooster jumps on the hens back and bites her comb/head for balance.

 

[bantyprincess]

I have way too many roosters at the moment. I've seen them do the dance, but when one rooster sees anther mating then he wants to join in. It ends up being a gang bang and the poor hen runs away screaming after being jumped by 4 or 5 roosters!