Rooster problems....overly mating, rough on certain hens.

[Barbc77]

I think it might be the dumb thing. He was a "late-bloomer" in becoming a rooster. I think he needs a sign that says, "rooster in training!"

 

[jennifm2001]

In a crock pot he should be fine. Just give him some extra time. Save the liquid and use that as broth.

I’ll copy something at the end of this that may give you a little insight into what is going on with them mating. I wrote it for another post but a lot of it might apply to you or help you.

You were right to look at their legs and feet. If you compare the number, size, and sharpness of the spurs with the number, size, and sharpness of the claws you can easily see where the damage is coming from. Spurs are dangerous weapons once they grow, but roosters use the claws to hold on.

Roosters will often work together to protect the flock. That’s not all that unusual. Young children are especially vulnerable. Not only are their eyes fairly close to the ground, chickens seem to instinctively go for the head when they attack. That’s where they can do the most damage and even kill smaller predators or each other. Children often provoke an attack, chasing hens or with their actions appear to be a threat. Young children can’t protect themselves or impose their will on a rooster.

Like many people for thousands of years I was raised on a farm with a free ranging flock of chickens, including roosters. My siblings and I never had a problem, even at a pretty young age but there were some differences with you. We did not play in the areas where the chickens were. We did have chores in the area where they were but we went about our business, did not play with them or chase them. They were certainly not pets, pretty much raised by broody hens and never held or cuddled. A few times Dad brought home a few hatchery chicks which were raised in a brooder on the back porch and turned loose with the flock at three or four weeks. Regardless of what you read on here, those chicks did fine with several acres to range. Those roosters had, except for the hatchery chicks, come from generations where any rooster that showed human aggression was eaten, not allowed to reproduce.

Most of us don’t raise roosters like that. I support you keeping your children separated from the flock until they are of an age to take care of themselves.

I don’t know how those other two will behave around your son. Were they following the lead of the other rooster or now will they attack him on sight? Personally I would not take the chance. I’d either keep them penned up so they are separated or get rid of them and start with new ones. If you get on your state thread in the “Where am I! Where are you” section you might find someone close by with what you want.

I know this is a long post, hopefully you are reading it on a computer instead of a small device, but I’ll go through this. It takes about 25 hours for an egg to go through the hen’s internal egg making factory. That egg can only be fertilized during the first few minutes of that journey. That means if a mating takes place on a Friday, Friday’s egg will not be fertile. Saturdays; egg might or might not be fertile, don’t count on it. Sunday’s egg will be fertile. After a mating a hen normally lays fertile eggs for about two weeks. Some stay fertile for over three but don’t count on it.

Now that other post.

Typical mating behavior between mature consenting adults.

The rooster dances for a specific hen. He lowers one wing and sort of circles her. This signals his intent.

The hen squats. This gets her body onto the ground so the rooster’s weight goes into the ground through her entire body and not just her legs. That way she can support a much heavier rooster without hurting her legs.

The rooster hops on and grabs the back of her head. The head grab helps him get in the right position to hit the target and helps him to keep his balance, but its major purpose is to tell the hen to raise her tail out of the way to expose the target. A mating will not be successful if she does not raise her tail and expose the target. The head grab is necessary.

The rooster touches vents and hops off. This may be over in the blink of an eye or it may take a few seconds. But when this is over the rooster’s part is done.

The hen then stands up, fluffs up, and shakes. This fluffy shake gets the sperm into a special container inside the hen near where the egg starts its internal journey through her internal egg making factory.

With five month olds you are not dealing with consenting adults. You are dealing with adolescents that have no control over their hormones. The cockerels normally mature earlier than the pullets and are being driven mad by their hormones. The pullets have no idea what is going on so they certainly are not going to cooperate.

At that age most of this is not about sex either. The mating ritual is about dominance. The one on bottom is accepting the dominance of the one on top, either willingly or by force. It’s not about pecking order either, but total flock dominance. The cockerel’s hormones are screaming at it to dominate the pullets but the pullets are not ready for that. It takes both to do their part, pullets as well as cockerel.

To do his job as flock master, the cockerel has to be the dominant chicken. How can he keep peace in his flock if he can’t break up a fight without the others beating the crap out of him? What good does it do to warn of danger if no one listens? How can he fertilize the eggs if they don’t cooperate? A cockerel is usually bigger and stronger than the pullets. If they don’t cooperate willingly he is going to force them. That’s part of his job, to be the dominant chicken.

Part of being the dominant chicken is that he has to act like a mature adult. He needs to dance for the ladies, find them food, watch for danger, keep peace on his flock, and do all the things a mature rooster does to take care of his flock. He also has to have enough self-confidence to win the hens over by his personality. It takes a while for most cockerels to get their hormones under control enough to be able to do this.

Normally the pullets and cockerel will mature enough to play their part in the flock. For the pullets that is often about the time they start to lay, though some take a few months longer. I’ve had a cockerel do that at five months but that is really rare. I’ve had some that took a full calendar year to win over all the ladies. Normally around seven months a cockerel will mature enough to start getting his hormones under control and act like a flock master should. Normally the pullets are ready to accept him at this time but more mature hens may hold out a little longer. It’s going to vary with each flock, depending on the personality of the individual hens and rooster.

Until the cockerel and the pullets mature enough to fulfil their duties in the flock and learn proper technique, it can get pretty rough. Normally neither the cockerel nor the pullets are harmed during his maturing process but since force is involved injury is always possible. The big problem for a lot of people is that it is just hard to watch, especially if they don’t understand the dynamics of what is going on. I don’t see anything unusual or out of the ordinary in what you describe.

You may hear that disaster is assured unless you get more pullets. Some people believe that a magic ratio of hens to rooster will solve all these types of problems, ten to one is often quoted. It doesn’t work that way. Many breeders keep one rooster with one or two hens throughout the breeding season without any problems. One secret though is that they use roosters and hens, not cockerels and pullets. That makes a big difference. You can have the same problems with very small hen to rooster ratios as you do with very large hen to rooster ratios. If you want to use this as an excuse to get more pullets by all means go for it. But it is an excuse, not a real reason.

Some cockerels crow a lot. Some don’t crow much. It varies a lot by the individual. I don’t know of any way to control that during the day. Often if they are crowing at night they see a light. Maybe you have a security light or street light shining in a window. Maybe a car passing on the road will light up the coop. Maybe it is just a full moon. If you can keep the coop dark at night you can usually reduce the night-time crowing.

Good luck! It’s probably going to be a messy down there for a couple of months, but if you can get through this phase, you should have a nice flock.

I cannot tell you how helpful this is and how fateful I am to have come across your post 6 years after you wrote it. Thank you! Might have just saved my pullets.