Crowing at night

Hi all,


So to start a little disclaimer: I have googled my specific problem, and searched this forum, but have not gotten a solid answer to my problem.

The problem is, I have a dominant rooster that crows. Loudly. At night.

I have a young flock of about 20 mixed juvenile hens, one juvenile maran rooster, and two d'uccle roosters. The maran and the hens I have had since they were about 2 weeks. The d'uccles I acquired from a friend, with the intention of acclimating my flock to them so that even though the rest of the flock would eventually outgrow the d'uccles, they would establish themselves as the top dogs and protect the flock.

Well the plan seems to be working and the d'uccles are dominant yet docile, and overall get along with the growing hens/maran rooster swimmingly. However, the dominant d'uccle crows at night, and I don't know why.

I 'lock down' my coop every night, so there is no way in or out. It's very secure and comfortable. There is a red heat lamp in there as I live somewhat north and it gets cold at night, but other than that it is very dark outside and we are in a relatively remote area. So I don't think light or excessive outside movement is the problem.

Honestly I've owned chickens for over half of my life, and I've never run into this problem before. Is there any other explanation behind this odd behavior, or any way to curtail it? I cannot afford to lose this rooster. Thanks for reading!!

 

Thanks for the responses! I suppose I'll try shutting off the heat lamp and see if that does it. I've had a few other flocks in this same enclosure in the past with no crowing under the heat lamp, but - each rooster is different, obviously. The worst case scenario is that Dudley (that's his name) is just a bit of a kook, and since the neighbors haven't complained yet, I'm not SUPER worried.

Thanks again, I really appreciate the input.