Very good question. Unfortunately, it leads to some disturbing answers.
There are a few unheralded mechanisms at work in wild flocks; common things, really... but things not really emphasized much on Animal Planet - unless youre a wildlife biologist.
First, wild fowl have far more elbow, er wing, room than nearly all farm/confined flocks. While territorial, wild fowl will often cover a couple of kilometers per day in search of food. We, on the other hand, almost always confine them on some level.
Males, of course, DO vigorously fight for dominance, but cocks dont normally fight to a bloody death except:
1. In strict confinement,
2. Where there are no places to run to or take cover from attack,
3. When there are many rivals present at one time.
All most commonly seen behind chicken fences.
In the forest, on the other hand, the beaten losers in the dominance brawls run off to the edges of the group and are forced into lower flock status. They escape death by the spur, but they don't enjoy the benefits of flock life to the same degree as the others. These "fringe" males don't totally leave the flock, ie, go into exile, since flocks are tight knit. However, being pushed to the edge for being the weaker, they are further subject to a weakening of vigor and thus predation as a result of less quality food. In the end, they're a little weaker, a little slower - and get picked off first, so to speak. It's the danger one faces when living on the edge in any group.
Too, don't presume the 50/50 ratio. In the wild, Nature has a way of adjusting these things according to need. Most of us have heard of frogs that change sex, if a population becomes predominant in one sex over the other? Cockroaches do it, too. The same thing can occur in higher genera animal poplulations. In essence, the birth rate of one sex or another shifts, according to conditions, to favor the lesser represented sex.
If left to themselves, chickens like other animals reach a stasis point in their numbers which favors one dominant male and 20 or so femmes. There can be many distinct groups if food is plentiful, like at the dump in Greensboro, but individual wild fowl flocks are not huge. In each flock, there are usually one or two lesser males nearby, too. These guys wait for the alpha cock to fall in battle with outside rivals, or succumb to disease and basically just try to survive - and get in a quick shag while the alpha is preoccupied.
Sometimes the alpha cock even steps aside and allows these lapses in breeding control, if genetic "muddying" within the flock requires a "freshening of the blood," so to speak. So, even these lesser males have a purpose, but HOW the alpha male knows to do this is still a mystery.
All this occurs in feral populations as well, if given enough time to remain in an area and revert to more "wild" ways (in fact, the little-studied field of domestic animal regression - which is the meaning of 'feral' - is a fascinating subject in it's own right).
We on the other hand change all that with our husbandry - or mismanagement of it.
CAUTION: The following may be offensive to some. If you are sensitive, stop reading now.
- We like to be "nice" and "caring" and can't bring ourselves to cull excess males, those with antisocial or harmful dispostions, or any birds that are past their prime.
- We like flocks that are large, since bigger is better and/or means more profit.
- We like flocks that are genetically diverse, with lots of physical variety and/or frilly fanciness.
- We often give little thought to the results of indiscriminate breeding. We allow any and all cockerels to breed with any female. This disturbs both the genetic vigor and stasis within the flock that Nature would otherwise impose.
- Our flocks have little wiggle room behind their fences and so the ugliness we bemoan in roosters comes to the fore.
NOTE: A hundred years ago, a common number given was 15 square feet or more per bird in houses and 100 square feet or more in the pens. Whats the number given today?
4 sq ft. in the house and NO thought given to how many are kept in the pen. Sound familiar?
For the record, I'm not pointing fingers here. For most of us small flock keepers we just aren't taught differently - especially newcomers. Many of our "modern" small flock methods have come down to us from a combination of things...
a. Factory farming offshoot concepts,
b. The "peace, love and tie-dye" mentality,
c. Psuedo-scientific New Ageisms.
But in the farmyard or backlot flock, these mingling concepts lead to results we are ill-equipped to deal with. We end up scratching our heads and wondering what went wrong. We have the opportunity in our small flocks to keep it simple, more closely model what Nature intends and get closer to a self-regulating and vigorous ecosystem - if we will only trouble ourselves to do so.
