Rooster breaking hens' necks?

[earthmama24]

A couple months ago, I had a perfectly good Silkie come up dead and we felt strongly that our rooster had killed her trying to mate her. Then 3 days ago, one of our hens began limping (I think mated too roughly) and the next day, she is flopping around the chicken yard with a broken next. Day after that, we found another hen dead with a broken neck. All of the hens that have died this way were our more docile hens and though I never witnessed what happened, I strongly suspect that the rooster killed them. Is this possible? Have roosters been known to break the neck's of hens? I locked him up after the 2nd hen was found dead and took him to be someone's dinner today. I wasn't thrilled about this because he has given us the largest ratio of girl chicks but if he's killing them as fast as we can hatch them out, what good is that?

So, just wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this or has an opinion on another possible cause of healthy chickens with broken necks. All of the chickens that died were the same age, around 2 years old. The rooster is one of their children, around 10 months old.

 

[Erica]

Hi earthmama24,

I would strongly suggest you have a predator of some sort. I've never seen roosters breaking necks; not unless the birds he's treading are absolutely tiny and he's gigantic. Even then it's the hens' legs that go, not their necks.

Over-mating presents most often as feather loss on the back of the head, and damage to the hens' hip/thigh area from where the rooster grips her.

I feel something is stalking your birds, perhaps being interrupted before it can make off with the proceeds.

Just my thoughts,
cheers
Erica

 

[bethbarn]

i have a large easter egger rooster, not by choice, 2 of the 6 chicks I bought were roosters, then I bought 2 silkies, I am going to get rid of the rooster or build the silkies a separate pen, I witnessed him mating her and at the same time biting her neck, she is holding her head all bent, she is now in a dog crate alone until i can build the silkies their own pen or get rid of him, so i bet you didn't have as predator, especially if the rooster was larger he probably did kill the silkies and I have only had chickens since march for the first time.