Rooster with mating problems?

[StephensonC]

So, I have a 15 month old RIR rooster with 16 hens. He has been doing his job fertilizing all the eggs for many months now. However, in the last 2 weeks, only a few eggs here and there are fertile all of a sudden. I know it sounds crazy, but I started watching him to observe his mating efforts. He seems to "try", but is having a hard time balancing. Once balanced, he tries to initiate the final contact, but doesn't quite make it and then jumps off. Is anyone familiar with this type of issue? Also, he has never been aggressive in the past, but since this mating thing has started, he is showing minor aggression toward me.

He doesn't appear to be sick or injured. He has no signs or symptoms other than the mating issue. But, maybe I'm missing something. Any thoughts and ideas would be great.

 

[chooks4life]

So, I have a 15 month old RIR rooster with 16 hens. He has been doing his job fertilizing all the eggs for many months now. However, in the last 2 weeks, only a few eggs here and there are fertile all of a sudden.

Were they reliably fertile before? I get the impression from you saying "he has been doing his job" that the answer is 'yes', but I don't know for sure, so have to ask.

(Mating is only mating, not fertilizing, unless proven to actually be fertilizing. Small, seemingly irrelevant technicality there, but some people use the terms 'fertilizing eggs' and 'mating' interchangeably, hence my question. Some people in the past have posted asking why their eggs aren't hatching or developing when they're all fertilized, and they "know for sure they're fertilized, because they saw the rooster mating".)

If we really want to get pedantic, it's not even fertilizing, since fertile sperm can't 'fertilize' infertile eggs, and fertile eggs can't be 'fertilized' by infertile sperm. Fertile eggs and fertile sperm combine to create new life, nothing else does.

lol, ok, sorry, I'll stop being pedantic now...

15 hens per one rooster is almost certainly far too many. About 10 too many for a lot of breeds; many breeds use a ratio of between 1:1 and 1:5 for reliable fertility. Beyond that, you're often dealing with a lot of infertile eggs.

Purebreds tend to be lower fertility than mongrels, but it's not a universal rule at all, a lot depends on the individual and its environment including/especially diet. The best diet for breeder birds is recommendable for avoiding a lot of future problems, not just layer pellets which is basically asking for problems and will also result in a lot of infertility, especially as hens approach moulting.

Another potential reason is season; some roosters are effectively infertile in winter or in very hot temperatures like midsummer. None of mine are, but I'm in the sub-tropics, I don't know what it's like where you are.

Bigger breeds are generally considered lower fertility; bigger chooks are often clumsier being one possible reason. This might be one issue at fault here, since most chooks in my experience continue to grow for up to 3 years, only really becoming true adults in their prime after 2 years of age; when younger he was smaller and more agile, making it easier to mate. This might be the issue, if he was fertilizing eggs back then... It can take time for brains to catch up with coordination of suddenly much larger bodies.

Another potential reason is that he's too big, and the hens have learned that refusing to cooperate gets him to give up quicker and leave them alone; if he's too heavy and it's hurting them, they will sit very squarely to avoid stressing or breaking their skeletons, basically just bracing to survive, and not mating under this circumstance, usually. Those hens that do mate under such circumstances tend to suffer breaks.

Some fluffy breeds need their butt feathers trimmed, but if this was the problem, you'd almost certainly be seeing semen on their butt feathers.

There's a chance he, or the hens, are of lines that experience extremely steep and premature drop-offs of fertility for whatever reason; checking with his breeder, or their breeder/s, should give you an idea of their fertility lifespan.

Other examples of common causes of infertility are disease, even if they look healthy it's no guarantee; cysts internally especially on the gonads of either gender, and chemical exposure whether environmental, by natural sources like toxic weeds, or pesticides.

Low vitamin A is a very common cause, so common that vitamin A is often referred to as the fertility vitamin, as it's so necessary in both achieving conception and successfully maintaining the rest of the reproductive process through to birth or hatching. It's also necessary in healing and many other vital functions so if your chooks caught a virus for example, even if no symptoms showed, that could have taken a whack of multiple necessary nutrients out of their bodies for that time period, leading to insufficient going into reproduction.

Sperm is very easily damaged by many things, more so than eggs are, so he would likely remain the most suspicious individual in the equation. Since you have only one male, hard to test whether it's them or him.

Did you worm them recently or use chemical treatments for parasites or disease? Did you vaccinate them recently? Did a neighbor vaccinate their birds recently or have sick birds or spray weeds recently? Those last few potentialities are all circumstances you're generally advised to not continue breeding under, as they can cause deformities. (When I say 'recently' I mean within the last three months, generally being the most relevant time period, but some things can cause up to a year's reproductive failure, or even more). If it's any of these issues, depending on what it was and what degree of harm occurred, his sperm should recover in time.

I know it sounds crazy, but I started watching him to observe his mating efforts.

Absolutely not crazy, and most people consider this important, I know I do. There are some serious aberrations in mating behaviors and sometimes serious incompatibilities between animals that can only be observed during these times.

I've had to weed out roosters who the hens would rather die than mate with, roosters who would mount hens as they were actually laying the eggs (life threatening), and roosters who would mount very young chicks or sick birds. I've had to weed out roosters who would savage the hens while mating, mount them while eating or drinking so they choked, and roosters who would sit on the hens and refuse to get off even once mating had occurred, or simply without attempting to mate at all. These are all serious issues which can not only impact fertility and breeding behaviors the offspring inherit, but also the productivity and even survival of your hens.

Hens can and do develop dislike of certain roosters, especially as they get older and smarter since pullets tend to mate with any rooster. Sometimes this dislike deepens into complete and final refusal to mate with the rooster, no matter what.

There's also histocompatibility to consider, that's worth looking into.

There are also 'cryptic female/sperm choice mechanisms' inside female reproductive tracts that destroy sperm of certain types, often sperm with deformities but also sometimes all the sperm, or just sperm of one gender, or sperm of certain genetic types. The female reproductive tract is not a racetrack so much as a gauntlet the sperm have to 'run' along.

Sometimes it's merely an over-acidic Ph state to blame, common in animals on very processed feeds especially those including cooked oils, fats and proteins. This can be helped by giving apple cider vinegar (with 'the mother' in it) in one drinking water bowl.

Many females of many species also 'sperm dump', even while actually mating, just basically spit it straight out and thereby his efforts are in vain. Chickens are known to do this.

If any of those last things are happening, which I doubt in this case since it sounds like successful mating isn't even occurring, you'd need another rooster. You can't make your hens like a rooster they don't like and if that's the issue, there is almost always a very, very good reason why they don't like him.

Their bodies may be having an immune response to his semen or sperm and therefore destroying it all. Immune responses, or allergic responses even, can take time to build up antibody levels to the point that actual infertility occurs. This is more commonly seen in cross species mating but can also happen within the same species.

Recent studies on Avian Leukosis Virus have showed evidence of males directly infecting offspring with it via semen, with no vertical transmission from the hens themselves, which was previously though to be the main method of transmission; the hen's immune system might have a reaction to such infected sperm.

Even now, almost all sources will tell you 'congenital infection of offspring from the cock is considered unimportant'. That is unfortunately based on assumption but taught as fact. He could have ALV and look just fine, perhaps be a carrier not a sufferer, so to speak; ALV is as common as dirt in many areas. Deaths from it are almost always in the minority anyway.

Disease testing may be a resort to try out here; it's almost 100% guaranteed that they're carrying multiple diseases anyway. It's not mutually incompatible with being healthy.

He seems to "try", but is having a hard time balancing. Once balanced, he tries to initiate the final contact, but doesn't quite make it and then jumps off. Is anyone familiar with this type of issue? Also, he has never been aggressive in the past, but since this mating thing has started, he is showing minor aggression toward me.

In some other species infertility or sub-fertility is positively correlated with higher aggression in males, and I've certainly seen that the least fertile roosters I've ever had were also more aggressive.

About the balancing failure... A video might help. I've not seen roosters have trouble balancing on even bantam hens. Sounds more to me like he's got some kind of malfunction and he's quitting because it's not happening, maybe. The potential causes are myriad.

However, mating problems generally mean "don't breed this individual", unless you're sure it's something that's not his fault, which doesn't really sound too likely to me at the moment... But it is too early to say for sure.

If the hens only crouch but do not move their tail and rump into position, he can't do anything. Are your hens doing more than just tolerating him standing on them for a short period of time? Do they move their tails out of the way?

Unfortunately for your boy, if they're all refusing him, chances are he has a serious fault anyway; exceptions to that general rule include older hens that were raised completely without any roosters around and which will often never tolerate a male like other hens will. Still, if they crouch for him, they should be mating as well, most chickens have a very automatic reaction with that, even males will mate like hens if mounted, even if it's a hen doing the mounting and mating.

Have you got much experience with chooks? Are you familiar with the spectrum of mating behaviors, i.e. would you recognize a true mating when you see it, not just a mounting? If in doubt, YouTube videos might help.

Successful matings can look different to one another but you should see contact; very experienced chooks can mate in a split second, though, it doesn't need to take a long time and if it does it's generally a sign of infertility issues.

I even had one rooster and hen that would mate without him jumping on or touching her at all bar the cloacal kiss. He'd come running across the yard when he saw her, and when he got very near she'd spin on the spot, sit, and assume the necessary position, all in a moment, and he'd jump over her and they'd mate while he was in midair, lol... He'd always make some funny triumphant noise while he jumped over, too. He was by far the most fertile rooster I ever had. He was very, very popular with the hens, no other rooster has been so popular before or since. He had dozens upon dozens of offspring so rapidly, the job became stopping his genetics from being passed on, lol.

Conversely, the most infertile rooster I ever had would repeatedly mate with one hen over and over and over again, in the space of a few minutes, and he always took his time. Fairly soon the hens seemed to understand that he was infertile and all began to refuse him, but he also just seemed to dissociate from the flock by choice, and his attitude which had originally been good progressively became sour and vicious, culminating in an attack on one hen that he'd begun to pick on and terrorize, and I had to cull him. In all his life of a few years with free access to many hens and me attempting to breed him, he only ever managed to produce one weakly pullet offspring, probably not coincidentally with the very hen he always picked on, the only hen he ended up trying to mate with at all. Her other offspring with other males are strong and fertile, so I know that pullet represented his faults, not hers. He had always been good with the hens, but at the end there became cruel.

He doesn't appear to be sick or injured. He has no signs or symptoms other than the mating issue. But, maybe I'm missing something. Any thoughts and ideas would be great.

Maybe your answers to my questions will shed some light. Don't know, but good luck anyway.

Best wishes.

 

[StephensonC]

Thank you so much! This is a lot of valuable information!!! I am fairly new to all this and just learning as I go. This is INCREDIBLE!! I love to learn all that I can, especially if it pertains to my chickens, so I will be evaluating this, one by one, dissecting every detail. You can be sure that you haven't wasted your time in replying, and in so much detail. It is greatly appreciated. In reference to your question about the eggs being "truly" fertile, yes, I have 14 of their eggs in the incubator on day 20 currently. All were alive when candling at lockdown. I did remove some clears early on, but they belonged to another rooster and hen that are kept separate. So, none of the eggs from the questionable rooster were clears.

So, with all that being said, you have given me something to keep me busy today, instead of staring at the darn incubator all day, waiting for something to happen...lol

Thanks again, and I may have more questions, once I start looking more into this. Is it crazy to be this excited about learning something new?

 

[chooks4life]

You're very welcome. I hope you find out what's going on soon, and let us know how it goes. There sure are a lot of possibilities to cover and things to learn.

I think enjoying learning is very natural and it's unfortunate how many people lose that joy. Always a good thing when you're still keen on learning new things.

Best wishes and good luck.

 

[krista74]

Just wanted to say a big 'thank you' to @chooks4life for such a thorough, interesting and thought-provoking response.

I am not having rooster issues myself (lord knows Georgie is doing his best to set some sort of mating record here!) but I found your whole post extremely educational. What a delight to read such a well considered response.

- Krista

 

[rebrascora]

Likewise, I too found your extensive response extremely informative. Many thanks for sharing your knowledge of the subject in such depth. I am also not having poultry fertility problems, but much of the info you posted has been mentally stored for future reference.

 

[Amina]

Is the rooster molting? They become less fertile during that time.

 

[chooks4life]

Glad it's been useful for you guys.

Best wishes.

 

[aart]

Quote: You can go watch chickens 'do it' ...lol...sorry, skewed sense of humor spewed.

 

[StephensonC]

You can go watch chickens 'do it' ...lol...sorry, skewed sense of humor spewed.

I totally get your sense of humor!! I'm actually waiting for it to warm up a little outside, so I can go do that. lol

Is the rooster molting? They become less fertile during that time.

He isn't molting, but that is an interesting fact that I had not thought about. Thanks