rooster question

[Aevin]

I'm not sure how to ask this. I've tried looking online but didn't find anything. Maybe I wasn't asking the right questions. Anyway I was wondering can a rooster become infertile? Like is there a certain age when they aren't able to help create a chick. We have Rhode Island Reds. Our babies are only a few weeks old but just wondering how long our rooster will last.

 

[Blackberry18]

I'd believe that cocks can become more barren and unable to produce spermatazoa as hens stop laying, perhaps in four years. I've read that cocks become less fertile in the winter.

 

[donrae]

I'm sure they do start to age out, but am not sure when exactly. I had a 4 year old rooster who was vigorous and very fertile. He got de-throned by a younger bird so I'm not sure how long he would have been fertile.

 

[Mrs. K]

I had an older rooster, and have very low fertility. So I think that a couple years, and it can dive. But just keep checking your eggs.

Mrs K

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I'm not sure how to ask this. I've tried looking online but didn't find anything. Maybe I wasn't asking the right questions. Anyway I was wondering can a rooster become infertile? Like is there a certain age when they aren't able to help create a chick. We have Rhode Island Reds. Our babies are only a few weeks old but just wondering how long our rooster will last.

At two years of age (that's when he in his second set of adult feathers) most roosters will hit their prime. After that it is down hill. However once I made a walk (otherwise known as a free-range yard) at a remote farm house. I put my 4 year old rooster and approximately 40 hens belonging to a friend on this walk. No other chickens were within 2 miles. I sat the eggs weekly in GQF cabinet Incubators. The old boy fertilized and I helped hatched out over 80% of the eggs he fertilized.

However this rooster went through a 3 week regiment of the best food, great care, and strenuous exercise before his honeymoon to make sure that he was up to the task ahead of him before he was placed with his harem. Fat roosters and plump hens can't get the job done.

Contrary to what many of you must believe, if roosters and hens are kept in near ideal conditions, it is usually the hen that initiates sexual contact.

She does this by sashaying rather blatantly and purposefully from the edge of the flock into the roosters' presence and when the rooster notices her he cuts his wing at her. She imminently squats sometimes as far away as 10 feet from him. In this situation you can bet your bottom dollar that no hen feathers were harmed during the fertilization of that egg. The whole sequence is very much like that of an African lioness in Estrous that I saw on TV.

It always takes two tango the dance of life so if you want healthy chicks and a lot of them neglect neither your roosters nor your hens.