Have you ever thought about how chickens mate ? I mean really thought about it : the logistics , the mechanics , the specific share involve ? Most of us believably have n’t , but if you are a chicken keeper , you ’ll desire to familiarize yourself with this fascinating process .
Regardless of what you acknowledge now , by the time the goal credits of this article roll , you ’ll shortly be able-bodied to impress friends , colleague and concluded strangers with a startling amount of detail about how chickens do the title . Be prepared , however , to disregard much of what you know about how most other creature engage in the routine because chicken mating is quite dissimilar .
The Laws Of Attraction
Many theories burst about why roosters and male person of many mintage are so much more colourful than their distaff counterparts . Put simply , to shore up his chances of pair with the fittest and most productive hens , a rooster has to prove that he is the hefty , stiff and most predominant male in the flock .
And while he does n’t have a closet section to gussy him up , theroosterrelies on his big , bright - red comb and fancy plumage ! High testosterone level are responsible for for that sizable , bright - cerise comb and suffice as grounds of a cock ’s manfulness , fertility and overall health , make him more attractive to a hen and making her more open to his improvement .
Picking Up Chicks
Roosters do n’t rely alone on their good looks to get a particular date , but they do n’t get carry away with courtship or foreplay either . Forget about dinner party and a movie . However , the most romantic roosters will enthrone a bit of effort into a few fancy moves to impress the lady . This flirting can include any of the following — with or without sending flowers the next day .
The Matador
This manoeuvre is a lordly video display of plume finery usually referred to in literature as the wing pull , wing drop or wing flicking . I call it The Matador ! The rooster fans his wings showily while trip the light fantastic around the hen in the same way of life a matador fan his cape to attract the bull . This move is clearly intended to draw in a biddy ’s tending and mesmerize her with his size and stunning plumage .
The Two-Step
In conjunction with The Matador , a rooster may walk around the hen in a R-2 , pose himself behind her to take for granted the mating position , which closely resembles a piggyback ride .
Tidbitting
Sometimes roosters do n’t bother render to solicit their Paraguay tea with flashy plumage display or fancy footwork , which is often the case when he is lower in the pecking fiat than other rooster and his boyish magic spell is n’t enough to impress . Not the most respectable move in a rooster ’s handbook , tidbitting is essentially a deceptive act : He picks up and drops real or feigned food morsel with his beak while vocalizing an invitation to the hen to exhaust it . When she hustle over to investigate his offering , he pull out the ol’ bait - and - switch , rapidly assuming the mating position .
Chicken mating behavior is not entirely one - sided , however ; hens bear attention to ascendancy and fitness indicant among rooster the flock . What the roosters do n’t cognize is that the ladies have a level of control condition over the survival of the fittest of the species themselves .
If a biddy views a rooster as worthless or unwantedly low in the pecking lodge , she can bomb to cooperate with the sexual relation , bucking him off or otherwise physically frustrating efforts to conclude the deal . More impressively and discreetly , she may resist his sperm cell , expelling it from her body after the conjugation .
Challenges In Doing The Deed
rooster have a significant physical challenge in the romance department because their reproductive equipment is put in inside their bodies , unlike most other species in the animate being kingdom .
Most chicken keeper have a general indecorum with the location of the opening chickens use to expel waste , which is cognise as the sewerage . The sewerage serves as the vulgar corridor through which a chicken ’s digestive , urinary and procreative tracts empty . In other words , solid waste , liquid waste , eggs and semen all decease the body through the same tunnel . Thankfully , the egg get a special bodyguard through the hen ’s cloaca , enveloped by the shell gland , which protects it from contamination .
The cock ’s copulatory gadgetry is nothing at all like a penis . He relies on several little sheep pen of lymph - filled tissue to guide semen out of his sewer towards the hen ’s . The manly member is much less like a fire hose and more like a tiny , inflatable waterslide , pee the logistic challenge of mating unnerving indeed .
For Adult Eyes Only
So how do chickens actually mate then ? You might mistake it for a piggyback drive , as many an grownup has conveniently allowed a small nestling to assume is occurring upon see the chicken procreative terpsichore .
Blink and you ’ll miss it : The entire encounter befall in a topic of seconds , and it ’s remarkable that it work at all given the absence of a conventional manful appendage .
After any courting display , the rooster scamper into position behind the biddy , holding onto her point or neck feathers with his beak . He then step onto her back , adjusting his balance as necessary in an inapt manoeuvre know as treading . A academic degree of cooperation by the hen is necessitate in order for the union to succeed .
tread that is too fast-growing or frequent can stimulate feather damage , bald-pated muscae volitantes and skin injuries to the biddy . A protective piece of cloth have sex as a biddy bicycle seat or proscenium can be strapped to a hen ’s back with the tending of elastic cording around her wings to hold it in place until plume regrow .
For the hen ’s part , she spread her flank slightly forth from her body for balance , and lowers her tail slimly to the side in a position I call the subservient squat . This side is a foretoken of submission by a hen , which will often hunker even when approached by a person , cause many humans to hurt the false feeling that she wishes to be picked up or pet .
Next comes the main result , mention to as the cloacal buss , wherein the rooster lowers his tail , causing his cloaca to touch hers fleetingly while the semen is transport along the slide folds into her cloaca . The spermatozoa are then stored in “ sperm nest ” located along the hen ’s oviduct and are subject of inseminate eggs for up to 30 Clarence Day after twin .
That ’s all there is to it . He hop off , she shakes out her plume , and they both go about their occupation . The sex act is speedy , unromantic and lacks variety . There is no Kama Sutra for chickens ; one position fits all . However , what he miss in romance and originality , a cock more than makes up for in quantity ; an especially active rooster with a plentiful supplying of partners can match up of 40 time a twenty-four hour period .
A great deal of strong-arm agility and tractableness is required to get everything where it postulate to go for a successful insemination , and it can be fantastically awkward - looking , particularly when a rooster is inexperient , the hen is disobliging , or bodies do n’t balance or synchronize as they should . With as many times as I have seen my wimp mate , I still wonder that this species is at all capable of reproduction .
Remarkably , bantam cock are often able to mate successfully with heavy - fowl hens . I know this because I have hatched chick from matings between bantam roosters and large - poultry hens in my own quite a little , but the logistics of it boggle the mind .
A Rooster’s Role In The Flock
A hen does n’t need a cock to produceeggs ; she will not lay any more or less frequently and is no more or less glad as a result of the presence or absence of a cock . Roosters , however , can be beneficial to a pile in many esteem .
In addition to ensuring lengthening of the flock , they are strikingly beautiful and do as altruistic flock guardians , protecting the flock from external threats by piranha and keeping the peace between hens . Although not countenance in every neighborhood and not appreciate by everyone , their melodious , intermittent crowing can be a welcome line to louder , more unyielding noises — think traffic , lawn mowers and unremitting dog barking — inviting attender to consider what we value as a society and reminding those within earshot of unsubdivided times .
