Is it me or the rooster?

Lisa Wood

Songster
7 Years
Mar 6, 2016
528
164
197
AIKEN, South Carolina
Hello. AGAIN I have a rooster question. He is 13 weeks. From whatcI have read he is not aggressive, but is the age to practice breeding.
So this morning, during the quiet tranquility of doing my chick chores, he scares the %+&$@ out of me by practicing. I had full on view. He is on her back, has a good grip on the back of her neck to hold on. All normal, right? SHE is in pain. He is hurting her by holding back of her neck. She stopped screaming when it was over, and shook off, took a few to get herself back together. I will be checking her later today for laceration on back of neck.
Of course, he goes for my two little Legbars only. Bigger chicks fight him off.
It CANNOT be normal for God to make it painful and unpleasant every time. I have seen horses. Many males must get a grip simply to get the act done. But thecmares said yes. My chick is jumped by surprise, with her back turned.
 
Quote: Point of lay is when pullets start laying eggs, meaning they are sexually mature and will usually submit to mating soon before beginning to lay.
A 'good', mature cockbird will not mount a pullet that is not sexually mature....a young cockerel will try to mount anything it can.
Some cockerels are more discerning than others, some are so rambunctious that folks will separate them until they and the pullets are more mature.

CR is correct, male chickens do not have a penis...the male and female touch their vents together, often called the 'cloacal kiss', the male releases sperm which the female draws into her vent and is moved 'upstream' to where it can fertilize a yolk......that little shake a bird give s after being mated helps it along the way.
 
Lisa, we all have to start somewhere. It helps to have experiences with other animals like you have but flock dynamics can be different from herd or pack dynamics in some ways. There are a lot of similarities too though.

You’ve had some good people responding to you on this thread, I’m not going to jump into the middle of that too much. We all have our own ways to manage these situations and we all have our own goals. But I wrote something a while back for a different post and a different situation, but you might benefit from reading it. I’ll add it to the bottom of this.

I generally recommend that you keep as few males as you can and still meet your goals. It’s not that you are guaranteed to have problems with more males, just that you are more likely to have problems. Chickens have their own personalities, just like individual dogs and horses. They are not all going to act the same. For a lot of people zero males is the right answer. It just depends on your goals.

Right now you do not have a rooster, you have an immature hormone driven adolescent cockerel. At 13 weeks the sex act is not about sex, it’s purely about dominance. When they all mature, it will probably calm down a lot down there, though some never really mature. That’s part of dealing with individual living animals. As one member of this forum said, watching adolescents go through this phase is not for the faint of heart. It can get really rough down when those hormones hit.

Here is that post I was talking about. Remember I was responding to a different question so it won’t precisely fit your situation.

Typical mating behavior between mature consenting adults.

The rooster dances for a specific hen. He lowers one wing and sort of circles her. This signals his intent.

The hen squats. This gets her body onto the ground so the rooster’s weight goes into the ground through her entire body and not just her legs. That way she can support a much heavier rooster without hurting her legs.

The rooster hops on and grabs the back of her head. The head grab helps him get in the right position to hit the target and helps him to keep his balance, but its major purpose is to tell the hen to raise her tail out of the way to expose the target. A mating will not be successful if she does not raise her tail and expose the target. The head grab is necessary.

The rooster touches vents and hops off. This may be over in the blink of an eye or it may take a few seconds. But when this is over the rooster’s part is done.

The hen then stands up, fluffs up, and shakes. This fluffy shake gets the sperm into a special container inside the hen near where the egg starts its internal journey through her internal egg making factory.

With five month olds you are not dealing with consenting adults. You are dealing with adolescents that have no control over their hormones. The cockerels normally mature earlier than the pullets and are being driven mad by their hormones. The pullets have no idea what is going on so they certainly are not going to cooperate.

At that age most of this is not about sex either. The mating ritual is about dominance. The one on bottom is accepting the dominance of the one on top, either willingly or by force. It’s not about pecking order either, but total flock dominance. The cockerel’s hormones are screaming at it to dominate the pullets but the pullets are not ready for that. It takes both to do their part, pullets as well as cockerel.

To do his job as flock master, the cockerel has to be the dominant chicken. How can he keep peace in his flock if he can’t break up a fight without the others beating the crap out of him? What good does it do to warn of danger if no one listens? How can he fertilize the eggs if they don’t cooperate? A cockerel is usually bigger and stronger than the pullets. If they don’t cooperate willingly he is going to force them. That’s part of his job, to be the dominant chicken.

Part of being the dominant chicken is that he has to act like a mature adult. He needs to dance for the ladies, find them food, watch for danger, keep peace on his flock, and do all the things a mature rooster does to take care of his flock. He also has to have enough self-confidence to win the hens over by his personality. It takes a while for most cockerels to get their hormones under control enough to be able to do this.

Normally the pullets and cockerel will eventually mature enough to play their part in the flock. For the pullets that is often about the time they start to lay, though some take a few months longer. I’ve had a cockerel do that at five months but that is really rare. I’ve had some that took a full calendar year to win over all the ladies. Normally around seven months a cockerel will mature enough to start getting his hormones under control and act like a flock master should. Normally the pullets are ready to accept him at this time but more mature hens may hold out a little longer. It’s going to vary with each flock, depending on the personality of the individual hens and rooster.

Until the cockerel and the pullets mature enough to fulfil their duties in the flock and learn proper technique, it can get pretty rough. Normally neither the cockerel nor the pullets are harmed during his maturing process but since force is involved injury is always possible. The big problem for a lot of people is that it is just hard to watch, especially if they don’t understand the dynamics of what is going on. I don’t see anything unusual or out of the ordinary in what you describe.

You may hear that disaster is assured unless you get more pullets. Some people believe that a magic ratio of hens to rooster will solve all these types of problems, ten to one is often quoted. It doesn’t work that way. Many breeders keep one rooster with one or two hens throughout the breeding season without any problems. One secret though is that they use roosters and hens, not cockerels and pullets. That makes a big difference. You can have the same problems with very small hen to rooster ratios as you do with very large hen to rooster ratios. If you want to use this as an excuse to get more pullets by all means go for it. But it is an excuse, not a real reason.

Some cockerels crow a lot. Some don’t crow much. It varies a lot by the individual. I don’t know of any way to control that during the day. Often if they are crowing at night they see a light. Maybe you have a security light or street light shining in a window. Maybe a car passing on the road will light up the coop. Maybe it is just a full moon. If you can keep the coop dark at night you can usually reduce the night-time crowing.

Good luck! It’s probably going to be a messy down there for a couple of months, but if you can get through this phase, you should have a nice flock.
 
Hello. AGAIN I have a rooster question. He is 13 weeks. From whatcI have read he is not aggressive, but is the age to practice breeding.
So this morning, during the quiet tranquility of doing my chick chores, he scares the %+&$@ out of me by practicing. I had full on view. He is on her back, has a good grip on the back of her neck to hold on. All normal, right? SHE is in pain. He is hurting her by holding back of her neck. She stopped screaming when it was over, and shook off, took a few to get herself back together. I will be checking her later today for laceration on back of neck.
Of course, he goes for my two little Legbars only. Bigger chicks fight him off.
It CANNOT be normal for God to make it painful and unpleasant every time. I have seen horses. Many males must get a grip simply to get the act done. But thecmares said yes. My chick is jumped by surprise, with her back turned.
This is how chickens mate...probably should get used to it...
.......it can be alarming to humans, but it's perfectly normal.
Just because she screams, doesn't necessarily mean she's in excruciating pain or being wounded.
Be careful applying human emotions/reactions to animals.

Even pullets at Point Of Lay, 'scream bloody murder' when learning to be mated by a 'gentleman' cockbird.
I've got a group at POL now and hear this multiple times a day, it sounds awful, but they are fine.

13 weeks seems a bit young even to 'practice', are your pullets the same age?
A cockerel that age assertively mounting same age pullets is pretty aggressive, IMO.

As CTKen suggests, might be best to separate the cockerel until the pullets are at POL, or maybe rethink keeping any males at all if it upsets you.
 
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Honestly, I don't blame her for screaming and fighting. She's still a baby, barely in adolescence for a chicken. He's maturing a lot faster than her, and he has no older birds to keep him in check.

Since he's pretty precocious, I'd consider pulling him for a month or so until the pullets gains some sexual maturity. Even at that point, there is a lot of confusion and noise when they're working out the mating thing. But, at least your pullets will be physically ready to be receptive to his advances and they can mutually figure out things.
 
He is a chicken, hes not a bully, or an opportunist or any other anthropomorphic emotional trait.

Hes a chicken who is maturing and learning how to be rooster. Yeah it looks mean and kinda violent but chickens have been doing this for thousands of years.
I think they kinda have it figured out.

Separate him if it will make you feel better, but I would leave him be and let them figure it out.
 
It looks worse than it is, but yes, the young fellas often take a while to get their technique sorted, as well as learning a few basic manners. As long as the condition of your pullets is not adversely affected, i personally would not worry too much. If its a concern to you, then maybe consider keeping him in his own pen until he matures.

CT
 
This is how chickens mate...probably should get used to it...
.......it can be alarming to humans, but it's perfectly normal.
Just because she screams, doesn't necessarily mean she's in excruciating pain or being wounded.
Be careful applying human emotions/reactions to animals.

Even pullets at Point Of Lay, 'scream bloody murder' when learning to be mated by a 'gentleman' cockbird.
I've got a group at POL now and hear this multiple times a day, it sounds awful, but they are fine.

13 weeks seems a bit young even to 'practice', are your pullets the same age?
A cockerel that age assertively mounting same age pullets is pretty aggressive, IMO.

As CTKen suggests, might be best to separate the cockerel until the pullets are at POL, or maybe rethink keeping any males at all if it upsets you.


Yes they are all same age and raised together. Please explain Point of Lay and why that matters?
 
Point of Lay is exactly that - the point where they are ready to lay eggs. It matters because once they start laying, (or get close to laying) they are generally more cooperative when being mated.
 

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