Young Rooster behavior.....

[DaveOmak]

Is it "normal" for an 8 months old rooster to seem to want to mount a hen every couple hours..... He even seems to have a "selective" attitude toward the hens....
Yesterday, all the hens were in the coop... it was almost dusk.... He was crowing in the run, obsessively, for 15 minutes... then went in the coop and "forced" a particular hen out into the run.... that hen totally avoids him at all cost normally.... advanced toward her, chasing her, and she banged into the screening of the run and headed back into the coop..... Since he hadn't caught up with her, he headed into the coop and continued to chase her... finally caught up with her at the pop door and finished his mission.....

I do have one hen that seems to be able to put him in his place... stands up to him and "DARES" him to advance.... he backs down...

He doesn't seem to hurt them.... No bare spots on their backs.... feathers on their necks are still intact.... He just seems to keep very good track of who has been serviced... this has been the norm for about 4 weeks....

One of my 7 hens is laying daily, for the last 6 days.... the others haven't started yet, but it's close....

Oh yeah, one more thing.... He was singing yesterday.... the "egg song".... a perfect copy of the one hen that's laying.... I couldn't believe what I was hearing....

How many have roosters that can sing the egg song....

 

[ChickenCanoe]

All roosters can and usually do sing the egg song. It's really not an egg song but a where are you/here we are song.
It just happens to coincide with egg laying. I've had roosters separated from the flock do the call.

The rest sounds like normal rooster behavior to me.

 

[krista74]

All roosters can and usually do sing the egg song. It's really not an egg song but a where are you/here we are song.
It just happens to coincide with egg laying. I've had roosters separated from the flock do the call.

The rest sounds like normal rooster behavior to me.

x 2 with the above.

Everything you've described is exactly what my cockerel does. George is about 11 months old, and he has one thing (and one thing only) on his mind - trying to get action from his ladies. Like your boy, George is not rough with them either, but all of our girls now have bare patches on their backs simply because of how often he is mounting them. I have invested in some chicken saddles which they all wear for protection, and hope that once I can hatch out some chicks and grow my flock numbers a bit, George will be able to distribute his affection across a few more birds, rather than just over my current 6 hens.

As for the egg song, my boy sings it too. He will actually join in once his favourite girl has laid her egg, and will often do it in response to her calls for him when she can't find him. Once he has heard her call back, he will run through the bushes, hackles raised, until he locates her. When he's found her, he will chase her around and around the yard in circles until he can catch her, and then he mounts her straight away - I can only assume it's a case of "Don't you EVER run away from me again!"

They sure are funny to watch!

Krista