Rooster picking on ONE hen?

[Kjirstyn]

We have a neighbor rooster that comes over often and does fine interacting with our hens...except for one. He is just obsessed with her, and makes a beeline for her every time she's around. Honestly, I'd call it rape, because he is just vicious about mating her with all he has. The other girls he treats like normal, and they put up with him fine. This girl runs away and spends the day alone-- or comes running when I come to look for her, because she knows I mean safety.

I'm just wondering-- is this normal rooster behavior? We have so few hens that we can't really see a pecking order, but would he pick on the lowest hen? The only thing I can see that she does differently is that she squats with minimal provocation, including to us humans, and she's the only one of the flock who does so.

I don't understand chicken brains well, so just trying to see if this is a logical chicken thought (and therefore, maybe we can preempt it somehow?) or if he's just being a jerk and needs to be put in the stewpot. (Neighbor's rooster or not, some days he comes pretty close.)

 

[Alia]

Chickens are so similar to humans in their social behaviour that the hen may just be so hot that she induces this behaviour in the rooster. Chickens also value the same traits that humans do, and studies have shown they are able to differentiate ugly humans from attractive ones. To me this means you should be able to tell if your hen is just hotter than the others. Big eyes, big comb, and leghorn-like build can make a hen beautiful.

It's my opinion that the easy squatting is because of being bred so often, not the other way round. The poor creature is repeatedly raped so much she just naturally squats because she wants it over with.

(I vote stew pot even if the rooster can't help it.)

But then again, you could always put a saddle on the hen so that the constant raping isn't so hard on her.

As far as if it's normal? I've seen the same thing in mice and livebearing fish as well as chickens. I don't know if the fact that it happens makes it normal though.

 

[Kjirstyn]

Hm. Well, she's not as floofy as the rest of the hens (she's a speckled sussex, and the others are a brahma and orpingtons), so maybe that makes more her leghorn type? Her comb isn't big-- the other girls have bigger combs.

So far she still has all her feathers, probably because we run interference all the time and she also just runs away whenever he's near. I don't know if a saddle would help her in that respect, since she's not ripped apart. Mostly it just infuriates me that this testosterone ridden animal comes over (ignoring his OWN hens) and treats one of ours like this.

Yes, I've talked to the neighbors. We actually set up alternate free range days, but for some reason the rooster was let out today, so we got to deal with it again. Hoping it won't repeat. Mostly was just curious what the deal was as far as the rooster himself is concerned.

 

[Alia]

He has his own hens? Yeah I'm pretty sure I'm right. This happens in all sorts of animals. I once had mollies, and the male fish ignored all of the females except one, whom he raped to death. Mollies can store sperm and birds aren't responding to smell, so at least in some cases, it's not just a matter of who's "ready". (I hear chickens can better utilise sperm too, and that a single session with a male can be good for 5+ fertile eggs.)

As far as stopping him from doing that, he won't if my hypothesis is correct. (Or maybe someone else knows something I don't about his chickeny brain, such as some trick that will work on it.) I've also had male mice who were like this, breeding one female over and over while the others in the cage never got pregnant. Mice aren't chickens though, and if the male only wants a 10, he's not responding to the same cues as humans and chickens. So what I did was I rubbed the back ends of the other females against the back end of the "10" - and he bred them.

Ultimately I decided this was pointless and got rid of the male in favour of a specimen without the high standards. I still find it hilarious how easy it is to "trick" a smelling animal in this way. You can even use the same trick to make mice accept each other more readily, since the mouse smells itself when it takes a sniff at the other.

 

[Kjirstyn]

Yes, he has his own hens, who treat him much more favorably than ours do. Ours pretty much ignore him. It's ridiculous.