Roosters are known to be the more aggressive bird when compared to hens. One reason for this is because roosters were bred by humans to cockfight.
This aggressive personality trait can, unfortunately, have a negative effect on hens. If your rooster keeps biting your hen’s neck this article will explain why
Rooster biting hens neck:
If your rooster keeps biting your hen’s neck don’t be alarmed, he is simply participating in the mating process with her.
Animals, all throughout the animal kingdom, have very aggressive mating habits, biting of the neck is not an uncommon mating behavior.
When a rooster is trying to get the go-ahead to mate with a hen he will dance for the hen to amuse her and get her approval. If the hen approves of this behavior, and accepts him as a mate, she will lower herself and let him climb on top of her.
Once on the hen, the rooster will bite the back of the hens neck grabbing onto her feathers to steady himself on her back and they will start mating.
Younger roosters will be more aggressive when doing this because they lack experience but they should calm down with time and experience.
What to do:
This behavior is normal and natural and is nothing to worry about as long as the hen isn’t getting hurt.
If the hen loses feathers because of this, or if the rooster draws blood while doing this, then you may need to put a chicken jacket on the hen.
A chicken jacket will keep the rooster from ripping any more of the hen’s feathers out, the jacket will also allow new feathers to grow in, and will allow the hen’s open wounds to heal
If your hens constantly have bald spots on their necks, or backs, then this means that the roosters are over-mating the hens because there are too few hens.
Make sure that you maintain a 1:10 rooster to hen ratio to keep this from happening.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other chicken related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: What To Feed A Broody Hen, Broody Hen Keeps Switching Nests, Broody Hen Has No Eggs, Rooster Hates One Hen,