many questions about rooster lovin' and fightin'

[katharine]

1. Do roosters love any female, do females love any rooster. These are all young (less than half year old and less than a year).

2. Would siblings know each other even if they were separated soon after hatching? Do siblings mate?

3. In a free range situation will there always be male fighting? Will they just have their own group rather than their own space? Our pet rooster chases them now but there was only a few fights. I am afraid when he gets older the yougher one will try to become dominant.

4. If you want to get rid of a rooster but not kill it can you bring it to an area where there are alot of other wild chickens? Would his mate be really upset and miss him?

I have one hand-reared tame rooster (cockerel). He is not a year. I have two other a male and female (siblings). They are Jungle Fowl that we kidnapped. We have had them since tiny chicks but didn't give them enough hand-raising so they still have wild in their blood. They are a few months old and we recently let them free. All have free range of the neighborhood(we live in a jungle). We just got another small female who actually is the sibling of the other two. We want her to be mate/partner with our pet rooster. I just let her free after too short in the cage. She is off by herself or her siblings, not with our handsome rooster.
Basically we want our pet rooster to be happy and are not sure having another rooster is good for lovin' or if we should keep adding females until one loves him?...or if we get rid of the other rooster will they grow to love him??

 

[FutureChickenMan]

1. I presume with the word "love" you mean sex. 'Cause I doubt chickens can really have the capacity to love like humans do. Anyway, yes a rooster will have sex with anything it can successfully mount. Hen's don't get much choice in the matter if the male is agressive enough, he'll just pin her to the ground hand have his way with her.

2. No idea if they "know" each other but will they have sex with each other? Yes.

3. Depends on how many hens you have. A roo will be happy with 8-12 hens of his own. More roo's less hens = fighting.

4. Better to cull him, give him away or take him to a shelter. We shouldn't introduce animals that are not native to the area.

Again, very few animals have "love" as you and I know it. When they're gettin it on it's all about reproduction and not a demonstration of affection.

 

[arlee453]

Roosters will generally mate anything that has feathers and can't get away. They don't care if it is sister, the same breed of chicken, or even the same species in some cases (check out the several threads on roosters that won't leave ducks alone). Your average roosters is pretty much just a testosterone machine, whose three primary goals in life are to mate as much as possible, protect his territory and hens, and mate as muich as possible. Did I mention mate as much as possible??

If you want to pair up your chickens, you'll have to pen them up together and separate them from the other chickens. I'd be a bit leery about just pairing up one hen and one rooster, unless he's a VERY laid back rooster, or you will have one very unhappy and over 'used' hen. Not to mention the fact he will probably mate her non stop until her feathers are all clawed out and she is exhausted. Male roosters need several females to dilute their attention so that no one hen gets too much 'affection'.

Ideal ratio is around 1 roo for every 6-10 hens - it's not exact, but if you have too many roos for the number of hens you have you will have a lot of vicious fighting among the roos, generally speaking.

And, don't just let ANY domestic animal 'out' somewhere. It's not fair to the animal, who may not be able to fend for itself succesfully, nor to any neighbors who may be anywhere close by.

Chickens are not wild animals - not even the wild game ones - they are domesticated birds and not part of the normal eco-balance.

 

[silkiechicken]

1. Do roosters love any female, do females love any rooster. These are all young (less than half year old and less than a year).

Any rooster will mate any hen when they are mature. Siblings do not matter, they do not think like humans. Just don't hatch out their eggs.



2. Would siblings know each other even if they were separated soon after hatching? Do siblings mate?

Siblings mate, and they could careless about if they are siblings or not. Separation at hatching, or hatching eggs from multiple parents, they will grow up as siblings and do regular chicken things with each other like establish a pecking order.



3. In a free range situation will there always be male fighting? Will they just have their own group rather than their own space? Our pet rooster chases them now but there was only a few fights. I am afraid when he gets older the yougher one will try to become dominant.

Not always fighting but there can be. Once a pecking order is established, it calms down, but as soon as one thinks they can win, there can be fights. Keep one roo per 10 hens or so since less, there will be fights and your hens will be over bred and may lose their feathers on their backs due ot it.



4. If you want to get rid of a rooster but not kill it can you bring it to an area where there are alot of other wild chickens? Would his mate be really upset and miss him?

Chickens don't pair off with a mate. They follow the lead usually and if you got rid of it, a new lead will take it's place. Don't dump a chicken since it is a domesticated animal. Chances are if it doesn't starve to death, it will get killed and eaten by a predator. In additon, letting go of pets is a good way to introduce disease into wild populations.



5. I have one hand-reared tame rooster (cockerel). He is not a year. I have two other a male and female (siblings). They are Jungle Fowl that we kidnapped. We have had them since tiny chicks but didn't give them enough hand-raising so they still have wild in their blood. They are a few months old and we recently let them free. All have free range of the neighborhood(we live in a jungle). We just got another small female who actually is the sibling of the other two. We want her to be mate/partner with our pet rooster. I just let her free after too short in the cage. She is off by herself or her siblings, not with our handsome rooster.
Basically we want our pet rooster to be happy and are not sure having another rooster is good for lovin' or if we should keep adding females until one loves him?...or if we get rid of the other rooster will they grow to love him??

Since this is not typical of most people here, and you are trying to tame a non domestic chicken... which isn't a chicken now that I read this and you say jungle fowl, if you have a pet and ferals runing around, your pet is probably low on the order so thus doesn't get the ladies. If you are in the US, and you say jungle, I assume Hawaii where they are feral chickens rather than jungle fowl.

 

[DuckLady]

Funny this came up.

I hatched out a full sister to my rooster (he was already grown) and he absolutely HATED her. He would beat her up, mate with her aggressively, chase her from the coop even at night and not let her back in. She hid from him constantly. She would venture out to eat and if he saw her he would peck at her, drawing blood. He never did this to any other hens.
I found a new home for her of course, where she is a good broody, but an odd nervous spazz of a hen.

Now I have 2 of Speck's daughters that my friend hatched out and gave to me when they were grown and he treats them like gold. He escorts them all over, he finds them treats and he never mates with them. He will run off and mate with one of the others and then comes back to his girls. He doesn't go in the coop until they do at night.

I wondered if that was normal or not.