# Do roosters only mate with laying hens ?



## ladytoysdream (Dec 13, 2008)

My answer would be yes on the average. 

I have a lady who wants to buy some fertile eggs to hatch. I have watched the roosters here and I notice that they mate with the laying hens and some of the pullets that are really close to laying. She wants eggs to hatch her own and would prefer mine to use. However I have quite a few hens and I know these 2 roosters cannot get to all of them A few are senior hens, the ones laying are about 1.5 yrs old, and I do have a bunch of pullets really close. 

I am thinking a senior rooster would not waste his sperm on a non laying hen. Now a young rooster with raging hormones would not care. 

I did some research on this subject but did not come up with much. 
Thoughts ?


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## Fire-Man (Apr 30, 2005)

I have seen many roosters mate with hens that are not laying---molting, etc. Having hatched 1000's and 1000's of eggs-----its aggrivating to set 250 eggs or any amount of eggs to find out in a week or two that 1/2 of them are not fertile----really aggrivating if most are not fertile. If she wants them now---I would explain that to her. If she is in no hurry I would move 5 or 6 of the hens that are laying into a pen with one rooster----then in a few days start collecting eggs for her.


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## tree-farmer (Jul 5, 2015)

I doubt any of them care too much and I doubt they're thinking too hard on the subject. The behaviour of the hens is probably a bigger factor. There's usually a group that follows the rooster around. I see some squat down to be mounted while others run away.
The rooster we had last year serviced 30+ hens reliably. He was awesome but unfortunately he fathered half our flock so we gave him away.
Someone gave us a Rhode Island Red rooster but he's not quite up to the job, so we added another one.


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## Moboiku (Mar 7, 2014)

Nope. A rooster will mate, laying or not. I wound up having to put my poor Silkie in a pen by herself as she was being hounded all winter even though she hadn't laid an egg since October. Certain hens are favorites and will be mated by any rooster who passes her. Others it seems don't merit the attention of roosters at all. My flock of LF and bantams are 100% free-range so any of the 10 or so roosters can mate any hen the other roosters let him have access to. However last year I had a customer request a dozen of the bantam eggs for hatching. It was only after he'd run his incubator for 3 weeks that I learned the bantam hens are apparently not favored by the LF roosters (above mentioned silkie hen excepted). None of the bantam eggs hatched, while the 15 dozen LF eggs he purchased at the same time had a 90% hatch rate, indicating the issue is not with the fertility of the roosters but that they simply don't care for the smaller bantam hens when there are LF hens available.


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

The equivalent of your question would be do Human men only "mate" with ovulating women? There are no pheromones or other clear indications that a hen gives to the rooster that she is in peak ovulating function. If a hen assumes the possition easily is about the only cue the rooster gets. But that is a reflex response and has no relationship to her egg production. Besides the fact alot of roosters dont wait for acceptance and just take what they want.


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

A standard LF rooster can easily mate with bantam hens. And with some practice most bantam roosters can mate MOST standard LF hens


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## barnbilder (Jul 1, 2005)

"Conserving sperm" is not a part of the male psyche in any species. But with age, sometimes conserving energy would make it seem that way.


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## FarmerKat (Jul 3, 2014)

Just from observing my flock's behavior, I have seen my roosters mate only laying hens (or just about to start laying). The immature pullets seem to keep their own little group and one by one they integrate into the big group as they mature. But I have never had a rooster isolated with immature pullets only so I cannot say one never would.

How many hens do you have? I have several roosters now but I only had 1 and 27 hens at one point. All eggs that I cracked had that little circle on the yolk that shows when the egg is fertilized. A friend got 4 eggs from me to put under her broody. Three of them hatched.


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## Moboiku (Mar 7, 2014)

FarmerKat said:


> Just from observing my flock's behavior, I have seen my roosters mate only laying hens (or just about to start laying). The immature pullets seem to keep their own little group and one by one they integrate into the big group as they mature. But I have never had a rooster isolated with immature pullets only so I cannot say one never would.


This is correct however outside the scope of what I believe the OP was asking. The question - at least as I understood it - wasn't about mature hens vs. immature pullets but about whether or not the rooster will mate a mature hen who is not currently laying.

In most cases, roosters will not mate pullets who have not yet reached laying age, although an immature cockerel will sometimes practice on the pullets because they are the only ones he can force to submit to him.


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## ladytoysdream (Dec 13, 2008)

I think I solved the problem. A cousin is incubating eggs and will candle in a week and let me know her results. So I can buy a dozen fertile eggs from her, hopefully. 
I asked her my question I posed in this thread and she did not know. And she knows a lot about poultry. 

Currently I have way too many hens. I had only 40 going into the winter. Found a deal on 1.5 yr old spent production hens end of December, and I could not resist. Sold a bunch of them and kept about 30 for me. Had to shove the protein to them but it was worth it. Then I walked into a deal for 21 pullets and 3 roosters. All close to POL and were going to be butchered the day I bought them. I got them in the morning and the lady told be that night, was their butchering appointment. The guy had too many and did not know what to do with them except to eat them. I made a call looking for a few hens and ended up with the deal. Rhode Island Reds, light Brahams, Ameracaunas, Delawares and the matching roosters ( the males went to son's house ). So less than $ 7 a bird. I'm a chicken magnet. Got 6 hens coming tomorrow but already have a buyer for them. No way can I add any more to my group.


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

How many roosterd do you have for that many?? To cover that many hens (90+) you would need at the bare minimum 9 roosters. If you had the space more would be better to ensure all your eggs were fertile.


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## FarmerKat (Jul 3, 2014)

Moboiku said:


> This is correct however outside the scope of what I believe the OP was asking. The question - at least as I understood it - wasn't about mature hens vs. immature pullets but about whether or not the rooster will mate a mature hen who is not currently laying.
> 
> In most cases, roosters will not mate pullets who have not yet reached laying age, although an immature cockerel will sometimes practice on the pullets because they are the only ones he can force to submit to him.


Sorry, I misunderstood the question.


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## tree-farmer (Jul 5, 2015)

Moboiku said:


> This is correct however outside the scope of what I believe the OP was asking. The question - at least as I understood it - wasn't about mature hens vs. immature pullets but about whether or not the rooster will mate a mature hen who is not currently laying.
> 
> In most cases, roosters will not mate pullets who have not yet reached laying age, although an immature cockerel will sometimes practice on the pullets because they are the only ones he can force to submit to him.


Not just pullets. I've got a pen with 5 roosters I really meant to butcher by now but I've been busy. It's gotten pretty gay in there...


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## ladytoysdream (Dec 13, 2008)

KSALguy said:


> How many roosterd do you have for that many?? To cover that many hens (90+) you would need at the bare minimum 9 roosters. If you had the space more would be better to ensure all your eggs were fertile.


I have enough roosters. However, they are not here on the premises. I sent the extras to my son's house for the winter. It would be havoc in my coop area with extra males. My head rooster does not like competition. He is tolerating the junior rooster because he is slowing down some now due to being almost 9. We let them out to free range yesterday and SR did not want JR to go back in the coop for my lockdown at night. I have 2 human doors and 2 kennel gates in my set up. Which helps when roosters are playing games. 

I was not planning on selling fertile eggs. I have in the past. I had a 500 egg incubator that I sold last year. My husband does not share my chicken passion. He likes them but the dirty work is all mine now. I bought a small homemade coop 1.5 years ago, when the neighbors moved. Plan was to use that for my chick room. Which I did for 2 groups. Now I have rabbit cages in that coop due to my overflow. It's basically a quarantine area. 

We have 2 acres in the country. Our land slops toward a creek. It is a triangle lot. It is hard for me to add any more to my animal set up than what I have now. I have my main chicken coop, we built 9 years ago. Then a carport room was added on and it is securely tarped . Last fall, I added my extra kennel sections ( 6 by 6 ft each ) to make a partial roof for my kennel run. Those were tarped to slow the snow down so my birds can be outside in the bad weather if they want to. I asked my husband to let me have a roof over my chicken run area so when I feed the animals, I would be under cover. He refused to let me do that. So I bought a heavy canopy metal frame back that I had sold to the cousin and she was not using it. I rearranged the legs, etc to form a frame to cover 3/4 of my run area. I got the extra sections in place for roof. Tarped them in 2 sections. Now the chickens can have more shade in summer, and protection from the sky predators. When warmer weather gets here, the wall tarps will come off. Only thing that saved me this winter was we had a mild one with not much snow. More than once I was under those roof areas, shaking the snow off. There is a slight slope also on the tarps so that helps the snow slide off on it's own. 

I will probably sell off some of the chickens to get back to about 1/2 of what I have now for next winter. Currently I have customers crying for eating eggs, so I need my current numbers. I have new birds not laying yet, and some just coming off their molt. When they all kick in, I will be the one crying. If the son follows through and builds breeding pens this spring, then I will be selling chicks too.


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