Odd behavior in Hen?

[Violetsfeathers]

I know that hens can turn into boys when there is no rooster present but that is not the case here.
I have a white bantam Cochin hen named Marshmallow, she is about two years old. Well, today I watched her mate another hen (Muffin)! There is a rooster that has access to all the hens I have and he mounts Marshmallow at least once a day, Muffin has never layed an egg in her life and she has horrible feathers, they are always torn up, split right down the middle. I have never had this happen before!
Also Marshmallow layed an egg yesterday, but not today. She has been laying eggs almost every day.

 

[Judy]

Hens mount other hens as a show of dominance. It occurs more frequently in flocks without roosters but can occur in any flock. Chickens don't have a preference for mating with their own sex. This is not about mating, it is about dominance and the pecking order..

 

[chooks4life]

Well, each to their own, but I must say I've never seen chickens or any animals really mount others as signs of dominance, I think that may well be an outdated perception of what's happening. It used to be taught everywhere but ethologists are now questioning its validity.

I used to believe it but my experiences have disproven the theory to me. Still, it's the commonly accepted conventional belief or interpretation of what's occurring anyway.

I've seen subordinate animals mount dominant ones far more often than I've ever seen dominant animals mount subordinates.

My Isabrowns used to mate with my bantam hens. It wasn't a dominance thing, because they were subordinate to them; I think it was just confusion, possibly hormonal, and also based in the fact that if you raise animals in homosexual societies they often exhibit same-sex attraction which may extend to lack of attraction to the other sex.

The Isabrowns did the entire mating complete with the cloacal kiss too, it wasn't a mock anything. Once I got roosters, they gradually stopped mating hens, but never liked the roosters and I only got fertile eggs from the Isabrowns for a while before they quit laying fertile eggs and the roosters quit mating with them. Go figure!

Best wishes.