Roos always mate the same hen back to back

[angc11]

Hi all! I have a rooster behavior question that’s kind of hard to even explain. I’m asking mostly out of curiosity. I have 17 hens and 2 roosters that are all 5 months old, I hatched and raised them all together. The hens are starting to lay and are finally letting the roosters mate with them instead of screaming and running away. One of my roos has always been the “alpha” since he was quite young and leads the flock around and does most of the mating. I’ve always considered my other roo a junior roo because he reached sexual maturity much later than alpha roo and mostly acted like another hen until maybe a month ago. Alpha would chase him around every day and always knock him off hens when he tried to mate with them. Well as junior roo has been coming into sexual maturity, he’s started to challenge alpha roo more and more. Alpha roo would knock him off a hen and dance at him and junior would dance back instead of running away. Then junior roo started knocking alpha roo off hens while he was mating and alpha would be angry and they’d dance at each other. Ok so this is all normal and I certainly just assumed this would happen since junior roo is behind the curve and starting to come into his own now and challenge the alpha. I expected it would happen more and more and they’d eventually start actually fighting or something.

Here’s where I think it gets weird: recently, junior roo knocked alpha roo off a hen and alpha didn’t seem to mind. junior then mated with the same hen that alpha just mated with and alpha didn’t care. This behavior has now started happening regularly to the point where if one rooster mates with a hen, the other will run over and watch and then mount the same hen back to back like they’ve just agreed to share the same hens now???? It happens every time I see one rooster mate, the other runs over and mates the very same hen. I don’t understand. And now they hang out together peacefully when all the hens go into the coop in the evening. Alpha used to chase junior into the coop but now it’s like they’re allies working together lol.

Has anyone seen this type of “coexistence” i guess is the way to describe it with roosters before? Where they start off having a clear and what i consider to be a very typical power struggle and then all the sudden become equals who share everything, including back to back hen mounting lol????????? It’s not really a problem per say, i’m sure the hens don’t love it but they’re not getting injured or missing feathers or anything. I mostly just want to understand because this behavior seems to defy everything i’ve ever read about roosters. My only uneducated guess so far is that my junior rooster is larger than my alpha so that maybe my alpha feels like he’d lose in a fight so doesn’t even bother. I know roosters typically avoid fighting if they can help it so maybe that sort of makes sense.

Anyway thanks for reading and would love to hear any thoughts!!!

 

[nuthatched]

I'd get rid of one or both for your hens sake.
They're trying to 'overwrite' each other.

 

[Mixed Flawk]

I had that issue with my 2 fairly young bantam cochin roosters. When they tore the back up on my 2 year old banty hen, it was over, I sent both off to a no kill sactuary. I really liked them too. We had roosters to spare though. They both were great with humans, just not to the hens. They would even do it to my 2 year old rooster when he was with his ladies.

 

[Mrs. K]

The more roosters you have, the worse problems you have. They will wear your pullets out. The feather damage will show up shortly. Hens will generally start hiding from them and therefore not eat and drink like they should. Not a good deal for them.

I would expect these two to begin fighting. They don't call it cock fighting for nothing. It can be very violent. A lot depends on if they are confined or free to go where ever they want - not as in a backyard, but rather as in acres. Then you generally, kind of, sort of can have more roosters.

But I would not keep either of these.

Mrs K

 

[McChooky]

I don't know for a fact one of mine died as a result of overmating them but they did the same thing.I had a friend who wanted one so I gave him the spare.My flocks happier now and so am I

 

[angc11]

Just an update that the roos stopped the back to back mating behavior after about two weeks. Alpha roo has gone back to not letting beta roo mate most of the time which is what I would have expected from the start based on what I've read. I was mainly curious as to why alpha roo would all the sudden became tolerant of beta roo mating his hens, especially right after he did. I've never read about any rooster behavior like that. But alpha is not allowing that or any mating from beta roo anymore. The roos are starting to fight a bit, usually in the mornings when their hormones are raging. Will probably have to pick one at some point if their fights get worse but for now I am just observing and learning.

By the way, for context, my alpha roo is excellent. The hens love him and he does his rooster duties extremely well. I feel good about them free ranging on 6 wooded acres because of his vigilance. His problem is he's slightly human aggressive, mostly just toward me (I'm always well prepared for him and don't have children to worry about getting hurt). beta boy is a pretty decent rooster as far as being alert to aerial predators and such but the hens don't really like him and often don't let him mate with them. most importantly for me though is beta is not human aggressive at all. So I am trying keep beta as a backup roo in case my alpha becomes human aggressive to the point where I get annoyed enough to butcher him. For now, I would like to make it work with my two roos until I hatch out some more chicks in the spring.

 

[McChooky]

My rooster watched his brother get taken away in a cage and tried to flog me later the same day.They used to roost side by side and were inseparable.They shared the same hens until I separated them and gave them all to this ungrateful guy. Now that my broody hen has hatched chicks I can finally replace him too. I feel exactly like you.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I had two roos, or at least a rooster and his cockerel son, for a while. And they seemed to have an accord. The senior could not manage all 20+ hens so Junior was slowly seducing some away, gradually building a small flock of his own. Senior did not seem to mind and they roosted every night side by side. I did not see overt contention between them until one day I did but nothing too serious, just neck flaring and a bit of jumping at each other, but it didn't last. It seemed more ritualistic than serious so I wsn't too concerned about it. But the next morning when I came out, Junior was lying there dead. I guess Senior'd had enough of that young upstart. Senior was the one that later flogged me so for a while we had no rooster.

 

[McChooky]

I had two roos, or at least a rooster and his cockerel son, for a while. And they seemed to have an accord. The senior could not manage all 20+ hens so Junior was slowly seducing some away, gradually building a small flock of his own. Senior did not seem to mind and they roosted every night side by side. I did not see overt contention between them until one day I did but nothing too serious, just neck flaring and a bit of jumping at each other, but it didn't last. It seemed more ritualistic than serious so I wsn't too concerned about it. But the next morning when I came out, Junior was lying there dead. I guess Senior'd had enough of that young upstart. Senior was the one that later flogged me so for a while we had no rooster.

One of my cockerels has tried to mate the pullets and crows but I may have to band them to tell them apart.I figure these will end up fighting soon since they're chest bumping and chasing each other.My legbars didn't do that either

 

[McChooky]

I had two roos, or at least a rooster and his cockerel son, for a while. And they seemed to have an accord. The senior could not manage all 20+ hens so Junior was slowly seducing some away, gradually building a small flock of his own. Senior did not seem to mind and they roosted every night side by side. I did not see overt contention between them until one day I did but nothing too serious, just neck flaring and a bit of jumping at each other, but it didn't last. It seemed more ritualistic than serious so I wsn't too concerned about it. But the next morning when I came out, Junior was lying there dead. I guess Senior'd had enough of that young upstart. Senior was the one that later flogged me so for a while we had no rooster.

Thanks for the heads up! I haven't decided how I'll separate them yet but I know its coming..