how often to roosters breed?

[jimz1]

How often do chickens breed? It seems like that's all the roosters do is jump the hens. Sometimes it's 1 on 1 and other times 1 roo will grab a hen by the neck and another will jump her. Is that normal? Will they hurt them doing it so often? It seems like that's all the roosters are doing! I was told that roosters will "do it" up to 40 times a day. Is that true?

 

[darkmatter]

Quote:
40 times a day?---------seems a low number to me. Roosters are Roosters.

 

[SLWyandotte]

as often as they can. mine breed probably once every 5 to 10 mins from sun up till about an hour before sundown. the only reason they stop then is the girls go to roost. the girls will go to roost when they get enough of the roos too. in that case if one gets down they chase her down to breed her.

 

[sourland]

Any chance they get. Yes, multiple roosters gang breeding a hen can hurt her sometimes quite seriously. Try to limit this behavior.

 

[cmom]

I agree with the other posts. How many males do you have with how many females? The males will mate many times during the day. That is about all they do. A good mix is 1 male to around 10 females for good fertilization. If you have more females for the males, the fertility will drop off and if you have fewer females to a males then they can over mate the females and actually wear the feathers off of their backs or if you have multiple males mating too.

 

[Amyh]

Just think about it like this... a hen eats all day to produce beautiful eggs, a rooster eats all day to produce reproduction energy.

 

[Dutchgirl]

Whenever they want, really, or whenever they can.

 

[karlamaria]

poor girls LOL,

 

[ChickiKat]

how often do they blink!!!!

 

[CarolJ]

Boys will be boys.