Chickens hens roosters what is the difference

Roosters use spurs to defend themselves. Luckily, there are safe ways to remove them. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Check out the new Million Gardens Movement website and get gardening! Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and are used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. By Shelby Vittek on May 30, Shelby Vittek. A guide for the new chicken parents among us. If you are the victim of an aggressive rooster, take comfort in that he is just doing his job — defending his hens against any unwanted visitors. When you throw treats to your flock of chickens, you will see the hens running uninhibited to the tasty morsels, pushing one another out of the way.

On the other hand, Roosters will run to the treats and make a quiet call to the hens, alerting them to the food. When I was growing up, we had a rooster that would stand around and watch the hens eat the treats, often not taking one himself until the ladies had their fill. Roosters are often the last ones into the coop at night and the first ones out the door in the morning. Their job is to keep the hens safe, and they take this job seriously — doing all they can to ensure the hens are in the coop safely in the evening and that no hazards are awaiting them outside of the coop in the morning.

Hens are content to peck and scratch all day, but roosters like to spend a significant amount of time chasing after the hens to mate with them. A rooster in his prime can breed up to 30 times per day , with the hens submitting to the rooster often after putting up a bit of an argument.

Both roosters and hens sleep on a roost in a coop, eat the same diet, need access to fresh water at all times, and require little else to be happy.

If you have both a rooster and hens, you will likely be feeding an all-flock commercial feed. Unless a hen eats a layer-specific feed, she will need a calcium supplement to ensure her eggs have adequately strong shells. The most familiar calcium supplement that chicken keepers provide are oyster shells, which can be purchased at any feed store or online, and should be offered free choice.

Hens will also need a place to lay their eggs — usually, this is in the form of nesting boxes kept in the chicken coop. If you do not provide a nesting box, your hen will find somewhere else to lay her eggs — and then it will be up to you to locate her nesting spot! Hens may also be susceptible to becoming egg-bound, which is when an egg gets stuck inside of a hen that she cannot pass. It will be worth it to research how to help an egg-bound hen if you keep laying hens.

That way, you will be prepared in the case of an emergency. In addition to the above differences between the rooster and the hen, there are also differences within their roles in the flock. Chickens are social creatures, and among hens, in particular, disputes will often break out. While roosters are the ones in charge, there is also a delicate hierarchy among the hens. There are usually one or more dominant hens and one or more submissive hens.

Squabbles often erupt, and you will usually see the rooster intervening and breaking up the fight. Roosters tend to keep peace within the flock, and hens are typically happier and feel more secure having a rooster with them. Once a rooster and a hen mature, it is easy to notice the difference in saddle feathering. You may also be able to determine hens vs roosters by looking at their tail feathers. Tail feathers are found at the end of a chicken and are found on both hens and roosters.

Another way you may be able to distinguish hens vs roosters is by observing their behavior. Roosters may become a bit rowdier than hens, as well as be more vocal. You may start to hear a young rooster begin to crow or show its dominance to the flock.

As roosters mature, they may also challenge one another or cause some disagreements within the flock. However, this is not always the case and hens can be trouble makers as well. Roosters may stand up taller on their legs or seemingly puff out their chests. While hens can be rowdy too, this is most common among roosters.

It could happen to any chicken farmer. However, there are some measures you can take if your hen turns out to be a rooster. If you ordered pullets from a breeder, then you contact the breeder when it turns out to be a rooster. Hatcheries will most likely not be taking back your rooster, but you may be able to secure a refund. Purchasing from a tractor supply store or similar will mean that you probably will not get a refund, as these will be straight run chickens.

However, there are advantages to owning a rooster as long as there are no laws where you live against keeping one. Roosters can help to keep your flock in order, especially if your hens are known for wandering off at night. A rooster is generally fiercely protective over his flock and will do anything to protect them. This helps to keep your hens safe from any lingering predators.

If your hens are having difficulty finding some grub, a rooster will help to provide for them and go on the search for some bugs. Roosters can also provide you with fertilized eggs, allowing you to sell to potential buyers that want to raise their own chicks. Owning a flock of chickens can be a memorable experience. However, it is important for many chicken owners to recognize the difference between hens vs roosters.

Knowing these differences will help chicken owners maintain an optimal flock and provide the best environment for their chickens. Cockerels are male chicks until they reach sexual maturity at about one year old, then they are referred to as roosters. On average, cockerels begin to crow between the ages of twelve to sixteen weeks old, although some breeds to begin earlier.

At first, cockerels crows are squeaky or gargled, much like male humans go through a voice change. Even when still young chicks, rival males try to establish dominance over each other and the pullets they were hatched with. The males will bump chests and stare down each other, then play fight. Normally, the goal is to establish a hierarchy among the males with the subordinates watching and imitating the movements of the dominant male rooster.

However, cockerels have little power over hens who will not tolerate them asserting dominance over them and let him know it. After a cockerel reaches maturity, at about one year old, he becomes a rooster and starts mating with the hens.

Roosters become bold, pushy, and aggressive as they vie for hens to add to their flock. A rooster is expected to guard his flock, warn them of danger, provide food for them, and make sure they are taken care of. He will intervene in fights between members of his flock to make certain no one is hurt. Roosters constantly are on the lookout for challenges from other younger roosters, and if they fight and he loses, there will be a new leader of the flock.

The old rooster might hang about on the area around the flock or move away and live an isolated life. If the older rooster lost the fight due to illness or injury as opposed to old age, he may return to the flock and challenge the new rooster for his position. Capons are immature roosters that have had their testicles surgically removed, or they have had an Estrogen implant. These procedures cause a lowered aggression in the animals and the meat to become more tender, flavorful, and juicy.

In Europe, Spain, and France, capon meat was once considered a luxurious delicacy fit for only the rich and powerful. Caponization is still widely practiced in France.

In other places, caponization has fallen out of favor as it is a high-risk surgery and too expensive to make it profitable. First, as odd as it may seem, chickens Gallus Gallus Domesticus did not originate in the United States.

Instead, they are believed to be descended from wild Indian and south-east Asian Red Junglefowl. They also provide two foodstuffs; their meat and their eggs.

As can be seen, chickens are greatly beneficial to humanity, and yet they can pose a danger through disease as well. More on that topic later. One, you need to know because having too many roosters will cause huge problems down the road when they reach mating age.

Roosters will fight and even kill each other to establish a flock of hens, and their hackles can cause enormous damage. Keeping only one or two male chicks can save the lives of your flock. Two, the more hens you have in your flock, the more eggs they will produce, so knowing the number of nesting boxes one needs is crucial. While sexing chicks is not an exact science with a ten percent failure rate, the easiest and most successful of these techniques is vent sexing.

With vent sexing, a farmer holds the chick and gently expels poop from the cloaca in order to see the sexual characteristics of the bird. If the cloaca shows a penis, then it is a male, and if not, you have a hen. Determining the sex of an adult chicken is extremely important so that they can be separated into their appropriate groups. This is because as they grow, birds of the same sex behave differently depending on whether they are egg-laying hens or competitive roosters.

While it is simple to identify chicks and adults but exceedingly difficult to determine the sex of an adolescent bird due to them not yet developing their adult characteristics but having lost those they had as chicks.

A few details about birds to look for have already been covered in this piece, their wattles, and combs. However, spurs are also a vital tell-tale sign of telling the sex of a chicken.