anyone ever had this happen?

[kemclaughlin]

My chickens are laying fertilized eggs and neither of our two roosters are crowing yet. They are about 3 months old.

 

[sourland]

Those are precocious boys.

 

[kemclaughlin]

They hatched at the beginning of May in my daughter's classroom. I thought maybe one of the hens was actually a rooster, but they all look like hens, and there is still the fact that none of them are crowing. Here are the yolks. The smaller, darker yolks are from my girls, the larger, lighter ones are store bought.

 

[kemclaughlin]

My chickens are weird. I just saw one of my hens mounting another, I know she's a hen because she is 6 months old and squats for me. She only got her comb and wattles recently, and they aren't very big. I have two roosters that don't crow, look like roosters for sure, I have never seen mount a hen, and I have fertilized eggs. Is this just because my flock is young? They follow me around like puppies and squat and try to get me to pay attention to them.

 

[MontanaDolphin]

Can you post pics of your flock? Perhaps the hen you caught mounting another hen is a hermaphrodite. This is extremely rare, but it does happen in the chicken world. She may not be a she, nor a he, but both. Or, she could be a roo that just hasn't developed the telltale signs of being a roo. Also, just because you don't see your roosters mounting the hens, does not mean that they aren't. You just may not be a witness to it.

 

[turkey lover]

i have a silver Cochin bantam,its mounts my hen a few times ,that I've seen,i thought it was a hen ,any way,i just don't know for sure now it doesn't have the long rooster tail,but the wobbles are very large an real red an its comb it good sized to,though its tail isn't a tight bunny tail ether,any thoughts

 

[chooks4life]

The mounting and squatting behaviors, like any sexual behavior, is not magically restricted to either gender and does not prove nor disprove gender just by presence or absence of that behavior.

It's likely in one gender and unlikely in the other, but by itself does not prove anything.

For an example, I had a proven hen mount and mate with many roosters, and they squatted, complained, and spread their tail feathers as a hen does. They were proven males and she a proven female who later went on to be a prolific layer and mother. I have also had other proven laying hens mate with hens. Not just mount, they mated.

For another example, baby turkeys take turns playing boys-n-girls, with one displaying and gobbling as best as its baby lungs can, while the other lies down. It's complete with mating behavior, but all non-gender specific in terms of who does what. As soon as one is done being the girl it will be the boy and the other will then be the girl, swapping every time they mate. Some male chickens mate with other males. As always, gender is a guideline, not a hard and fast rule.

Babies too can mate 'successfully' in terms of the physical mechanics of it, but of course are infertile for a while longer. Some chickens are extremely precocious. I've had one a few weeks old mating with adult hens. It was less than a quarter of their sizes, and they were bantams.

Quote: The bunny tail is a genetic trait that isn't actually tied to gender. No real guarantee there. Some bantam males, an even large fowl, can have very curled or undersized tails that look like a hen's except slightly more tapered. They're not 'wobbles' --- though I think that's a funny and good term for them --- they're 'wattles'. A lot of people call them 'waddles' like what a duck or goose does. If its crest and wattles are more developed than all the others, there's a good chance it's male. Not a guarantee either, though. Also, some roosters are quite late and slow in growing out noticeably male tail ornamentation, and some simply have pathetic little tails that stay baby sized.

 

[turkey lover]

oh ok,do you know if it is a rooster will that one an my other one start to not get along,or will they just share the girls,

 

[kemclaughlin]

I think it depends on how many hens you have and the temperament of your roosters.

 

[chooks4life]

Quote: As kemclaughlin said, temperament of roosters has a lot to do with it.

In hatcheries and other places some folks keep entirely male flocks. Some folks keep more roosters than hens. Their temperament will dictate whether or not they are violent with each other, not whether there are hens or how many hens there are. Some roosters share, some don't, some pair off with their favorite, some don't.

The majority of roosters can't actually keep more than a small handful of hens reliably laying fertile eggs. If you have an intolerant rooster, he can have 100 hens and he will still attack any other rooster he sees. A tolerant rooster is happy to have a minimum of one hen, but even if you took all the hens away tolerant roosters won't kill each other. Intolerance and tolerance tend to breed true.

Personally I believe it is important to raise chickens in family environments, i.e. hen with babies and father on hand, freeranging, so there is more tolerance. Little males can practice fighting with each other without a fatal or harmful result, whereas males raised separate from all other males then introduced as adults often go to extremes because they never learnt to get along --- much the same as dogs that weren't socialized.

If a rooster gets used to being the only boy he can become unable to cope with more. People say '2 to 10 hens' per rooster and stuff like that but in reality every rooster tends to have just one favorite hen. Even with more hens around she will get the most attention. So in my experience the minimum number of hens per roosters ratio is 1:1. No amount of hens will make violent roosters be tolerant. But more hens can help with semi-intolerant roosters, though I wouldn't advise breeding them. Injuries and deaths in the flock is inconvenient and costly. But each to their own, and best wishes with that.