Historic Presence of Jungle Fowl in the American Deep South

[centrarchid]

A video where the males forage together? There's quite a few of those videos in youtube. The males foraging could mean one of many things: they are subdominant males during the breeding season that decide to stick together since they can't obtain harems, they are young of the year birds in the fall and winter, or that the breeding season is over and there's no need to compete over hens.

Video you linked I have hard time categorizing what is going on to cause males to be moving about. Some where obviously immature. At least a couple where mature and replacing tail feathers. Dependent offspring ranged from chicks less than a week old to what appeared to be 4 to 5 weeks post-hatch.

 

[Ntsees]

In the video I linked regarding the Fitzgerald birds, I can't categorize it either other than chickens doing chicken stuff. My previous post was simply a response to Don 27 since he appears to be searching for wild rjf males foraging together.

 

[varidgerunner]

The feral gamefowl of Fitzgerald behave exactly as the feral gamefowl in many other places. Cuba, Hawaii, Florida. And the birds in those places aren't wild Red Jungle Fowl either.

 

[Don 27]

You know what I take that back. I was just watching some barn swallows flying South. Lol where has my mind been lately.


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[Ntsees]

I thought only mammals had a breeding season. I didn't think chickens did?

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Domesticated chickens tend to not have a breeding season since they have been bred to lay more than they naturally do (~variations to 365 eggs per year). However, the pure red junglefowl hens will only lay in the spring to early summer. Just think of the wild birds outside your house. The sparrows, hawks, wild ducks, etc. don't lay year round - only in the spring, and wild rjf follows suit.

 

[JShubin]

Most animals (and plants) have breeding seasons... Chickens breed/lay/hatch during the warm months (march-september in my area). My game hens will stop laying very soon.

 

[Don 27]

Yes I agree. I have been reading a lot on red jungle fowl lately. I always wondered how a chicken was supposed to brood 360 eggs a year. Jungle fowl are vary interesting to read up on. My game fowl only lay about 11eggs a year. Which is pretty good for survival, they don't have to find extra nourishment for all those eggs. I didn't think they had a breeding season because my game bantam hen would sometimes hatch out her chicks in the middle of winter. When it got really cold the chicks sometimes would die. I'm guessing the more pure birds like red jungle fowl would not make a silly mistake like that.

 

[Don 27]

Wild Red Jungle Fowl would be just as prone to fight when it was mating season. That is if you got real ones, and not just the gamefowl bred to look like them that hatcheries offer. In fact gamefowl are no more likely to fight than any other chicken, they just do it younger, have shorter periods during the year that they won't, and won't stop once they start.

So in the wild red jungle fowl roosters are constantly dieing do to fighting? If so then how is the breed still surviving? Sorry if I'm annoying you, you don't have to answer.

 

[centrarchid]

The density of birds (number per unit area) is much higher than landscape shown could support. Either they move around a lot to congregate in areas shown or they are being fed.

When I have kept free-range games on walks, they spread out a lot more than shown in video unless they are being fed. The spreading out has little to do with territorial adult males, rather they spread out to find eats. Some aggression, displays mostly, promotes dispersal but a large part of keeping birds apart is they know they must get into less traveled areas to find easy to find quality eats.

 

[varidgerunner]

So in the wild red jungle fowl roosters are constantly dieing do to fighting? If so then how is the breed still surviving? Sorry if I'm annoying you, you don't have to answer.

Yes. At certain times of the year, with certain classes of birds. (Adult males.) Bachelor groups form in marginal habitat with sub-adult males. Females occupy the best habitat, and harem groups are guarded by one or more adult males that will fight any other adult male that challenges them. It is what has insured that only the strongest, fittest males passed on their genes for millennia. The same is true of games gone feral, like the ones in Georgia, Florida, Hawaii, Cuba and a hundred other places. "Gameness" is bred out very quickly in feral conditions.