Too large Rooster making breeding difficult.

[adni02]

Ok i imported some brahams and cochins. They arrived in early November 2014 and were about 6.5 to 7 months old. Now Cochins started breeding after a months time and i got few chicks. Brahmas on the other hand started laying later. So far all of there eggs till now are not fertile. i investigated the problem a bit and found out that one of the hen has some feathers removed from her back meaning the rooster is supposedly doing his job. Ok one thing i did not mentioned before is that the male is quite large in size and females are not behind either. You can say that they are giant size. Ok yesterday evening i went to the coop to collect eggs, when i saw something which i wanted to share with you and seek guidance from any experienced member who might have faced this kind of problem.
What i saw was that the rooster got on top of one of the hens to do the "deed", then i noticed that the hen sat down and male after a while climbed down unsuccessfully. What i think the problem might be that as the rooster is quite tall and when he mounts the hen and the hen sitting down creates a problem for him to reach down and make contact.
This is what i think of the problem. Any one else had such kind of problem or any remedy to fix it?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don’t know if this is the problem or not, but some chickens have very thick feathers, especially those bred for show. Some breeders trim the feathers around the vent of both male and female to keep these thick feathers from blocking the target. Even though the rooster is trying, he may just be unsuccessful. Cochin and Orpington are the breeds I’ve heard about the most for this problem, but maybe Brahma’s too. Probably not from what you describe, but I’ll mention it.

When chickens mate, the hen squats to get her body flat on the ground. This transmits the rooster’s weight through her entire body into the ground instead of just going through her legs. This allows a bigger rooster to mate with her without hurting her legs. The hen should squat down to protect herself.

Another part of the mating ritual is the rooster grabbing the back of the hen’s head. This maybe helps him keep his balance and helps him get lined up right, but the main purpose of the head grab is to tell the hen to raise her tail up to expose the target. No head grab, no mating. Did he grab the back of her head?

The mating ritual is not just about sex, it’s also about dominance. The one on bottom is accepting he dominance of the one on top, whether willingly or by force. From what you describe that sounds willingly so that is good. Sometimes they have a false mating, where the rooster is asserting his dominance and not really to mate. Normally he goes through the entire ritual of head grab and vent touching, but not always. Perhaps this is what you saw. That doesn’t explain infertility though.

As you experienced, Brahmas are often late to reach maturity. Normally males mature faster than females and become sexually active earlier. That’s normally more about dominance than sex. Each chicken is an individual and does its own thing however. Perhaps you happened to get a late maturing male who hasn’t figured it all out or just has not yet developed proper technique.

You mentioned how big they are. Brahmas are a huge breed. Certain breeds of turkey get so big they have trouble breeding and need artificial insemination to get fertile eggs. I’ve never heard that about Brahmas but I guess anything is possible. Can you contact the seller and discuss this with them? If this is the reason for the problem, then they are having it too.

I don’t know what is going on. I tend to think it’s more of a maturity/technique thing but I sure can’t tell from here. Your best bet may be to contact the seller and chat with them if you can.

Good luck. This sounds frustrating and challenging.

 

[chooks4life]

Ok i imported some brahams and cochins.

Whoa, sounds expensive! Where are you located?

They arrived in early November 2014 and were about 6.5 to 7 months old. Now Cochins started breeding after a months time and i got few chicks. Brahmas on the other hand started laying later. So far all of there eggs till now are not fertile. i investigated the problem a bit and found out that one of the hen has some feathers removed from her back meaning the rooster is supposedly doing his job.

Feather removal isn't part of the job. Sometimes dominant hens remove feathers from subordinates as they pass them, sometimes you'll get an obsessive feather picker that regularly removes feathers from a chosen victim. So I wouldn't consider it a likely sign of the male mating with that hen, myself, but that does depend on your rooster, if he's rough with the hens it may be the case that he is regularly ripping at her feathers, in which case it may indeed be a sign she is his favorite. Or maybe she's just the one that dislikes him the most and therefore tries to pull away rather than mate when he tries to initiate it. In my experience if the hens do not like the rooster there's a very good reason why and he shouldn't be bred.

A clumsy male also tends to defeather females but damaging feathering is not actually a natural part of mating at all. Still, it's accepted as 'normal' by many, as are extremely abusive roosters. So it is normal because many don't cull against it. My males don't ruin my hens' feathering though.

Ok one thing i did not mentioned before is that the male is quite large in size and females are not behind either. You can say that they are giant size. Ok yesterday evening i went to the coop to collect eggs, when i saw something which i wanted to share with you and seek guidance from any experienced member who might have faced this kind of problem.

What i saw was that the rooster got on top of one of the hens to do the "deed", then i noticed that the hen sat down and male after a while climbed down unsuccessfully. What i think the problem might be that as the rooster is quite tall and when he mounts the hen and the hen sitting down creates a problem for him to reach down and make contact.

The hen sitting is quite normal, some will mate standing but others don't. A lot depends on how interested she is and how heavy he is. Most of my hens don't mate sitting.

If he is at all able to sit down normally, such as you would see on the perch at night, there's no reason his height should stop him from mating.

Nothing wrong with what she did, unless he got into mating position and she didn't move her rump feathers and cooperate in the cloacal kiss, which some hens do when being pressured by a rooster they don't like.... But it doesn't sound like that's what happened, because that still looks like a successful mating even if it's not.

What did he do while standing on her?

Some roosters just can't do it, they're impotent, especially purebreds of show or rare breeds, due to inbreeding. I've had 'sitters' before that would get on a hen and then do absolutely nothing despite her waiting and cooperating. Maybe they'd attack her, just sit and maul her and not attempt to mate. Some had to be forced to get off of her or they would sit there all day doing nothing.

They're either deficient in instinct or reproductive capacity --- or both --- and I culled them out. I'm not breeding for show so I won't practice artificial assistance of males that have low to no fertility or capacity to mate naturally. The same cannot be said for a lot of show breeders unfortunately. But, not to tar all show breeders with the same brush, some also value hardiness, fertility etc. But those are big problems in some breeds and it often can't all be reversed in one generation.

Can you ask the breeder of these birds some questions about whether the parents had mating or fertility issues, or whether they were bred via artificial insemination? Some breeds need their fluffy butts trimmed, but externally it would still look like a viable mating. Sounds like it did not at all look viable to you though.

This is what i think of the problem. Any one else had such kind of problem or any remedy to fix it?

If you can tell us what he's actually doing, it will give us a clearer idea, but a male that isn't following through with mating is likely a dud and while you can resort to some extreme measures to help breed him, it's unadvisable because it is breeding on a detrimental trait. Given that you have imported him I am guessing you would rather try everything possible though.

I agree with Ridgerunner on a few points there, being that they're slow maturing and the vents may need trimming, however I've never had a rooster enforce dominance on a hen by mounting, I don't believe mating has anything to do with dominance despite the common notion that it does, and I've had plenty of roosters mate without sitting down or the rooster holding on to her head or neck feathers. What's 'normal' isn't necessarily the same thing as 'natural'.

Best wishes.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Chooks, sometimes I wonder what kind of chickens you have. You see things I’ve never seen, but I think that is just proof that each chicken is an individual and each flock has its own dynamics. I don’t doubt you are seeing what you say you are. I’ve seen things other than my “normal” too but I try to stick with the basics as much as I can. My posts are normally too long anyway.

On the dominance thing, what is your explanation for a dominant hen to go through the entire mating ritual, including touching vents, with a subordinate hen? I don’t see this often and only in a flock without a dominant rooster. I’ve never seen it with roosters but other people I trust say they have though I think it may be more often with cockerels than actual mature roosters. Your thoughts are sometimes enlightening and always give me something to think about.

 

[chooks4life]

Chooks, sometimes I wonder what kind of chickens you have. You see things I’ve never seen, but I think that is just proof that each chicken is an individual and each flock has its own dynamics. I don’t doubt you are seeing what you say you are. I’ve seen things other than my “normal” too but I try to stick with the basics as much as I can. My posts are normally too long anyway.

I agree with you, I'm sure there are many different 'normals' out there, I see some described on this site a lot which I've never seen in my chooks, but I don't doubt the person is telling the truth, as odd as it may sound to me.

There's different mentalities that go with the different family lines and different instincts as well, definitely lots of types of 'normal' out there. My further selection against aggression and deleterious mentalities has obviously skewed what sort of interactions I see in my flock, but for the best I believe.

I think there's multiple potential explanations, not a lot of concrete answers, only theories, and different cases are due to different causes.

My flock has been without roosters a few times and none of my hens (of my rearing and breeding that is) have ever resorted to mating with one another, regardless of disputes over social status, or their current reproductive status. However bringing in in-lay Isabrown hens from a hatchery where they had no roosters did see some of them mate with my hens, but the Isabrowns were the subordinates yet took the rooster's role, but at all other times remained subordinate. The Isabrowns rejected the roosters for months but gradually accepted some matings, and stopped mating the other hens.

In my experience they naturally segregate into their own gender-specific hierarchies during their juvenile months and then don't fight one another after that, and I don't have conflict between adult males and females, period, and never enforced dominance over anything, and I've never seen males or females enforce dominance on their own gender by any means other than fighting, certainly not by mating.

Some female animals go through what may not be visible, so only slight, hormonal changes in the absence of males, taking part or all of the male role complete with the typical vocalizations, displays, and mating with other females. That one's been fairly well documented and I've had a few turkey hens do that; but in that case it's also not a ritual expression of dominance if they mate with another female, it's simply hormonally induced expression of instincts, just as it is when a male mates with a female.

I also don't really have an explanation for my turkey poults, only a week or two old, taking turns playing male and female. Was their mating a ritual? I don't see how, since by mutual consent they took turns playing both roles without contesting whose turn it was to be what gender.

When other baby animals mate (or attempt to, anyway), for example calves, is that ritual? I also don't think so. Infantile expression of instinct perhaps, but both genders take both roles and it doesn't correlate to their social status.

The typically female mating invitation, the crouch and cooperation, I've long thought is automatic in most hens, but I was quite surprised to see roosters react the same way.

You can breed on both correctly and incorrectly expressed instincts from a male or female into either gender of their offspring (I've experimented with that one lol) and what seems to cause them to express any set of behaviors is mostly their predominant hormonal influence combined with external stimuli, but same-gender-parent influence appears strongest normally.

So hens mating hens I would think is likely an expression of their own hormonal state, perhaps in conjunction with recognition of the other hens' reproductive state, rather than outright dominance.

Maybe some lines have been bred for higher testosterone, (probably accidentally except maybe in the cases of some gamefowl and some phoenix), and are therefore being hormonally induced to act like males?

I think many hens have a spike in testosterone based on their reproductive condition, most of my hens feel the need to cement their social status with all competitors right before going broody, and hens just out of brooding also seem to be pretty testy, pardon the pun.

lol thanks, I know I'm something of an alien when it comes to having experiences in common with some people.

If there's a social structure natural to the species and we destroy it, particularly also if we interfere with natural reproduction and rearing of offspring, the instincts begin to get confused and homosexuality among other issues becomes common. I think that's akin to stereotypies such as are seen in animals in zoos for example, frustration causes abnormal expressions of instincts and unnatural behaviors.

I have had some other homosexual animals and again, quite often (most often in my experience) the alpha is the one being mounted, which makes no sense. Cows will mount one another, and the bulls as well when in heat, too, which also makes no sense going by the 'ritual domination' explanation; and surely one would expect the average bull to react in a very hostile manner if indeed it was perceived as a gesture of dominance. But that doesn't happen.

It's been taught that way for decades but I don't believe it is correct. Same as we've been taught to view female sexual behavior as 'submission in action' but I think that's also incorrect, just a flawed interpretation of behaviors based on the predominant mindsets and social models of the times. I used to believe both those behavioral explanations but my experiences never backed up those explanations as being quite fitting for what's going on.

Best wishes.

 

[adni02]

Originally Posted by adni02

Ok i imported some brahams and cochins.

Whoa, sounds expensive! Where are you located?
Well they did cost me my half year salary. I imported them to Pakistan. Brahmas are from Belgium and Cochins are from Germany

They arrived in early November 2014 and were about 6.5 to 7 months old. Now Cochins started breeding after a months time and i got few chicks. Brahmas on the other hand started laying later. So far all of there eggs till now are not fertile. i investigated the problem a bit and found out that one of the hen has some feathers removed from her back meaning the rooster is supposedly doing his job.

Feather removal isn't part of the job. Sometimes dominant hens remove feathers from subordinates as they pass them, sometimes you'll get an obsessive feather picker that regularly removes feathers from a chosen victim. So I wouldn't consider it a likely sign of the male mating with that hen, myself, but that does depend on your rooster, if he's rough with the hens it may be the case that he is regularly ripping at her feathers, in which case it may indeed be a sign she is his favorite. Or maybe she's just the one that dislikes him the most and therefore tries to pull away rather than mate when he tries to initiate it. In my experience if the hens do not like the rooster there's a very good reason why and he shouldn't be bred.

A clumsy male also tends to defeather females but damaging feathering is not actually a natural part of mating at all. Still, it's accepted as 'normal' by many, as are extremely abusive roosters. So it is normal because many don't cull against it. My males don't ruin my hens' feathering though.
Ok my mistake you have a valid point but what i was trying to say and could not explain properly was that the male was atleast trying to mate with her which got her feathers messed up. As it turns out she is his favorite hen.
Ok one thing i did not mentioned before is that the male is quite large in size and females are not behind either. You can say that they are giant size. Ok yesterday evening i went to the coop to collect eggs, when i saw something which i wanted to share with you and seek guidance from any experienced member who might have faced this kind of problem.

What i saw was that the rooster got on top of one of the hens to do the "deed", then i noticed that the hen sat down and male after a while climbed down unsuccessfully. What i think the problem might be that as the rooster is quite tall and when he mounts the hen and the hen sitting down creates a problem for him to reach down and make contact.

The hen sitting is quite normal, some will mate standing but others don't. A lot depends on how interested she is and how heavy he is. Most of my hens don't mate sitting.

If he is at all able to sit down normally, such as you would see on the perch at night, there's no reason his height should stop him from mating.
I dont have a perch they are in a large pen about 8 x 6 and 4 feet high.

Nothing wrong with what she did, unless he got into mating position and she didn't move her rump feathers and cooperate in the cloacal kiss, which some hens do when being pressured by a rooster they don't like.... But it doesn't sound like that's what happened, because that still looks like a successful mating even if it's not.
I did remove feather from there rumps.

What did he do while standing on her?
Well he mounts her and then try to bring his rump down to hers but this process takes some time and he leaves her before mating.

Some roosters just can't do it, they're impotent, especially purebreds of show or rare breeds, due to inbreeding. I've had 'sitters' before that would get on a hen and then do absolutely nothing despite her waiting and cooperating. Maybe they'd attack her, just sit and maul her and not attempt to mate. Some had to be forced to get off of her or they would sit there all day doing nothing.

They're either deficient in instinct or reproductive capacity --- or both --- and I culled them out. I'm not breeding for show so I won't practice artificial assistance of males that have low to no fertility or capacity to mate naturally. The same cannot be said for a lot of show breeders unfortunately. But, not to tar all show breeders with the same brush, some also value hardiness, fertility etc. But those are big problems in some breeds and it often can't all be reversed in one generation.

Can you ask the breeder of these birds some questions about whether the parents had mating or fertility issues, or whether they were bred via artificial insemination? Some breeds need their fluffy butts trimmed, but externally it would still look like a viable mating. Sounds like it did not at all look viable to you though.
Well actually four of these males were imported i was supposed to to get 2 males with five hens but a close friend asked that i should give him 1 male and 3 hens so i only got 1 male and 2 hens. 3 of these males were very large in size and one was of normal size. These 4 males were from same parents. The normal size male so far is the only one who had success is breeding. Person who got him has about 30 chicks from him.

here are some pictures i took yesterday.

 

[chooks4life]

Wow, I see what you mean! I've seen some leggy Brahmas before but I think that rooster takes the cake. :/

I see you've removed the feathers, but his body shape does look like it could make mating difficult. I wonder if the very upright leg stance isn't perhaps related to inflexible or abnormally tightened tendons, I know that's the reason behind some other stances people have bred into some breeds of chickens and other species.

Maybe it's just a bad center of gravity/weight to height ratio, perhaps he loses balance when trying to move into the right position?

It was very kind of you to give your friend the other rooster and some hens, perhaps he wouldn't mind loaning you the rooster for a bit? Or perhaps you could get a cockerel from him?

There's a chance he's infertile, it's not too uncommon in some purebred lines. I have had a few males that go through the whole mounting behavior only to give up without having achieved actual mating, and even when they had managed to mate, they were so low fertility that I ended up culling them out. I didn't want to breed reproductive disorders into my flock, but that's a bit of a conundrum for rare breed keepers, you've just got to work with what you have because there often aren't alternatives.

Does his back/rump flex downwards normally? His vent is quite high positioned.

Best wishes.

 

[adni02]

My friend has almost the same rooster as mine and same problems as well. I was thinking about artificial insemination and thinking about reading some material on the subject.

 

[chooks4life]

Ok, good luck with that I guess.

If that's how the original breeder of these hens and roosters got them in the first place it may be your only chance. I'm not a big fan of perpetuating lines that can't naturally perpetuate themselves, but each to their own.

Best wishes.

 

[adni02]

Ok, good luck with that I guess.

If that's how the original breeder of these hens and roosters got them in the first place it may be your only chance. I'm not a big fan of perpetuating lines that can't naturally perpetuate themselves, but each to their own.

Best wishes.

Well i contacted the breeder and informed him about the problem he told me to wait as the male needs more time to mature fully. So i dont know what to do with him.