Rooster question. What's normal.

[togby2006]

Are roosters aggressive when they mate? I know a lot of other animals are aggressive when breeding.
We have a single comb brown leghorn rooster with lot of girls. We found one of the ladies with a scratch on the side of her face that had been bleeding. Does this sound like rooster/hen interaction, or is it more the hens making a pecking order? He rarely is aggressive with us (he has had to be put in his place a couple of times though). Thanks for any input.

 

[heatherkh]

Roosters aren't gentle by any stretch, but in my flock it's been the hens working out their pecking order that leads to the most lost feathers and scrapes. In fact, I saw one hen pecking the side of another hen's head while that one was being "serviced" by our roo. Talk about adding insult to injury!

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

How old is your rooster? Whilst still getting into the swing of things, they tend to just grab onto wherever they can. One of my poor girls has a spot above her eye where my inexperienced roo grabbed her to mate. Pecking order squabbles usually happen amongst hens, the roosters job would be to put a stop to their tussle if it gets out of control. At least that's what my roo does when two hussies are going at it. Good luck!

 

[togby2006]

All of them are about 20wks old. I've seen the hens peck at each other, but it usually isn't much more than in passing. The roo isn't very gentle. He seems to get upset if the hens refuse him.

 

[donrae]

Chicken mating isn't always consensual, especially when all involved are young. Mating often looks pretty rough, but as everyone ages they all work it out.

 

[sourland]

Chicken mating is initially not a 'gentle' process. Generally as the hens and rooster mature it becomes less rough.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

Yep- if they're all just 20 weeks old, they're just inexperienced. After they get the hang of it, the whole process should take about 5 seconds and be virtually silent.