What breed of rooster does not crow? Why do roosters crow in the morning? Hierarchy in the bird world

The scientific explanation for the phenomenon of rooster crow is based on territorial characteristics. The alpha male crows, notifying potential rivals that he is the master in this area and should not be disturbed. Other available conclusions are based on observations and experience of chicken farm owners and are speculative in nature, since they apply to a number of special cases, but do not fully explain the behavior of the bird.

When do they sing?

It has been proven that a rooster crows in the following cases:

• in case of “unauthorized” intrusion into the territory of an open range or into the premises of a chicken coop of strangers ( strangers, wild or domestic animals and birds);
• on the eve of upcoming weather changes;
• at dawn.

The male has many other sounds in his “vocabulary” that he uses in order to:

• warn chickens and offspring about the danger;
• invite them to share a meal;
• to pull down his fellow tribesmen who were “insolent,” from his point of view.

But these messages go unnoticed by people, since they are significantly inferior in pressure and volume to crowing.

Constant screams

Some particularly zealous individuals can crow around the clock with short breaks for food and sleep. This behavior can only be explained by some deviations genetic code. Experienced poultry farmers believe that these manifestations may be a consequence of breed costs.

It was noticed that on the territory of our country, uncontrollable screamers are most often found among breeds derived from the Yurlovka vociferous (the second part of the name explains everything), such as:

• Zagorsk salmon;
• Moscow black;
• Adler silver;
• May Day.

A comparative analysis of the propensity for curing of meat and egg breeds showed that the “leadership” belongs to the latter.

How to reduce vocal activity of a rooster

There are several effective methods to make a bird quieter:

1. 1. If the rooster constantly crows at night or wakes up his owners too early in the morning, you can try placing him at this time of day in a dark room with limited but sufficient space for air access. This will moderate the feathered ardor without affecting the behavior as a whole. It is important to remember that subsequently it must be released into bright light gradually; a sudden transition can cause stress in the bird.
2. 2. There is a strict hierarchy in the chicken coop. If there are several males, seniority belongs to only one. The alpha male takes precedence in mating and vocalization. During the morning roll call, the remaining roosters have the right to vote only after the leader. Any attacks on the authority of the alpha male are severely suppressed. If you add an older and more physically powerful rooster to a chicken coop with a frantic screamer, the problem will be solved very quickly.
3. 3. Another way to make the male behave more quietly is to make a collar from a piece of fabric tape with Velcro. An element with a double-sided working surface is suitable for these purposes. A piece larger than the diameter of the bird's neck is cut off. The plumage on the withers rises. The collar wraps loosely around the neck and is fastened with Velcro. The effect is that the rooster will not be able to take in enough air to crow loudly. He crows, but quietly, in a whisper.

Beginning poultry keepers should keep in mind that roosters from the same brood behave much calmer. They hardly show any sense of competition. They fight and scream much less than individuals of different tribes.

Japanese scientists conducted a study which found that roosters crow in accordance with their position in the hierarchy: the alpha male has the right to announce the onset of morning first, followed by lower-ranking individuals.

At other times of the day, roosters can warn the flock of danger (for example, of an approaching predator) with a loud “kook-ka-re-ku”.

Why does the rooster crow in the morning?

There are two versions as to why the rooster crows in the morning:

1. Initially, the crowing of a rooster was a signal that he was ready to mate. In the wild, the call could be heard not only by the female, but also by animals of prey, so the birds crowed at dawn.
2. Crowing is a territorial acoustic signal; it is a call to other chickens in the flock. One starts shouting, the others answer.

At what age do roosters start crowing?

Chicks up to two months of age cannot make loud sounds, they only squeak. From the age of three months, young cockerels try themselves at crowing, but it turns out ridiculous.

Roosters begin to master the loud chicken call at four months of age. Some breeds may start crowing much later.

How to make a rooster silent?

Attention! It is impossible to stop a rooster from crowing. If his screaming irritates you, choose a quieter breed. But even they demonstrate a ringing voice every morning.

To keep the bird silent at night, provide it with peace. There should be no openings in the chicken coop through which predators and rodents can enter the building. In the shed, place a feeder with grain, beans or other food.

How do roosters determine when to crow in the morning?

Previously, cock crow served to tell time among many peoples and was taken for granted. It was only in the last century that scientists became interested in why the rooster crows and began to study this issue.

The answer to the question why roosters crow in the morning goes back to the wild ancestors of today's chickens, when each bird family occupied its own territory for living and foraging. There is a hierarchy among roosters. The leaders of the chicken family are allowed to sing first; the males of the “second rank” sing next. The young cockerel that gives its voice may be pecked for its insolence.

The following reasons can explain why a rooster crows:

• notifying others that the territory is occupied and the livestock has a strong and courageous leader;
• checking the flock for numbers (is everything in place);
• the news that morning has come.

During the day, roosters crow repeatedly, for each case there is a specific sound: calling the hens to the feeder or dissatisfaction with their behavior. But in everyday noise, crowing is less noticeable to people. At night, sounds travel over long distances, and the human ear perceives the crow of a rooster within a radius of two kilometers. Each singer has a unique tonality, which differs from the voices of their relatives by only half a tone.

A rooster can crow loudly during the day; this happens for certain reasons:

• there is a threat to the laying hens, a stranger has invaded the territory;
• challenge to fight for the primacy of other males;
• sudden change in weather.

Often screams without apparent reason a bird experiencing stress. With the disappearance of the irritating factor, the male’s unusual behavior goes away. But there are individuals who, by their nature, are too loud. In this case, replacing the head of the chicken coop can help.

When the voice appears

At 2.5–3 months, young males try their volume. Their first singing is funny and sounds like a squeak. By 4–5 months, roosters master the technique of crowing and at first can crow constantly. Previously, well-groomed males learn to vocalize by the hour; their weak and unkempt counterparts noticeably lag behind.

Experienced farmers closely monitor the attempts of young roosters to learn to crow and cull individuals that have not yet learned to crow.

How does a rooster determine the time to crow?

At night the rooster crows three times: at one, two and four o'clock. In any weather and season of the year, these terms are unchanged, in winter period The cockcrow time may shift slightly towards morning.

Experiments have shown that staying deep underground, staying in a closed area for a long time sunlight indoors, hearing loss does not in any way affect the bird’s ability to sing strictly according to the clock. Crowing is determined by their internal biorhythms, which are not subject to changes in external conditions.

An unexpected discovery came from an attempt by researchers to compare the crow of a rooster and the location of the stars. It turned out that the leader of the chicken family casts his first vote with the appearance of the star Canopus from the constellation Carina in the sky. When the star hides behind the horizon, it is the turn to crow a second time. How birds navigate by the stars and why the rooster crows for the third time at sunrise has not yet been established.

How to stop a rooster from crowing at night

City dwellers who come to the village on vacation do not need to get up early, but the rooster crows in the morning and interferes with sleep. Unfortunately, there are no ways to stop a bird from crowing by the clock. Thickening the walls of the chicken coop will not solve the problem. On the contrary, when a bird does not speak for a long time, this indicates health problems.

If you don't hear the crowing

Why the leader is silent must be found out without delay.

• The cause of loss of voice in a bird can be respiratory diseases, in some cases leading to death. When silence is accompanied by paleness of the comb and rapid breathing, you should immediately contact your veterinarian.
• Provokes the absence of a rooster crow during the required molting hours. When it ends, the bird returns to its “duties.”
• The situation is worse with the rooster, who, after suffering from an illness, does not want to trample the hens, who has ceased to feel like a leader and has ceased to crow. In this case, treatment is useless, and another male will have to be placed in the chicken coop.

A person is not always able to change natural laws, as in the case of a cock's crow. All that remains is to humble yourself and enjoy their sonorous singing.

Scientists-ethologists classify the crow of a rooster as a so-called territorial acoustic (sound) signal. Sounds play an important role in the communication of birds with each other. These sounds are very diverse, in particular among wild chickens living in bushes, where their horizons are extremely limited.
A man hears the crow of a rooster two kilometers away. Unlike, for example, the repeated sounds with which a rooster calls hens to the food it has found, the crow is produced once, but longer and at higher frequencies. The higher the pitch, volume and duration of these signals, the stronger the effect. The same rooster always crows in the same way: deviations do not exceed half a tone.

Crowing is a kind of challenge to other roosters, to which they respond. True, in the case when the rivals are roosters of the same rank. If, say, a rooster crows in the same yard, occupying a subordinate position, then the dominant one simply attacks him without deigning to respond.

But what do the roosters, separated by a large distance and not seeing each other, call to each other?

About the territories occupied by a rooster and his “harem”. In nature, each such group of birds has its own area. Here they find food, here they rest and sleep. This area is protected from invasion by other birds of the same species.

The aggressiveness of animals prevents overpopulation, leads to the spread of the population, and the development of new habitats. But at the same time, fierce fights, leading to injury or even death of one of the rivals, are harmful to the population and to the species as a whole, since they reduce the number of individuals, especially breeding males.

So, with the help of crowing, a biologically useful result is achieved - the capture, development and protection of areas, and ultimately the spread of the species in a harmless way, because the matter is limited only by intimidation. The Rooster warns rivals in advance that this area is occupied and they must look for a free “place in the sun.” And only if all suitable places are populated will the fighting begin. In this case, the winner - an animal stronger not only physically, but also mentally - will become the successor of the family, which, of course, is also beneficial for the prosperity of the species, for its progressive evolution.

All of the above applies to wild birds. But this same form of territorial behavior was preserved in the domestic chicken, although it lost its biological significance: after all, man provides all the needs of domestic animals and controls the evolution of the species.

Roll call of roosters from their areas. There is a “no man's land” between the plots. The center of the site (not geometric) is the chicken coop. Chickens move away from it or from the nearest shelter into an open space (meadow) no more than 50 meters.

However, the peasant yard and surrounding areas remain his domain for the rooster, as he constantly reminds of this by screaming. One must think that the extreme proximity of the domestic roosters' plots forces them to crow more intensely, since the population of chickens in the village is super-dense. One more question remains: why does the first rooster crow occur at dawn at approximately the same time?

It is quite natural that, upon waking up, the owner of the plot hurries to notify the world of his rights. Then his warning cry is heard periodically throughout the day.

The awakening of chickens, like other animals, at a certain time is associated with the so-called biological clock. We are talking about complex daily rhythms based on the activity of the central nervous system on its different “floors” - from the brain stem to the cerebral hemispheres.

In addition to the rhythm of sleep and wakefulness, the behavior of animals is also influenced by rhythms that are repeated many times during the day. The German ethologist W. Schleidt found that in the turkey (also a representative of the chickens), the loud clucking of the male corresponding to the crowing is repeated periodically even if the bird is completely isolated from the outside world or is deprived of hearing.

Under normal conditions, internal rhythms are, of course, subject to external influences (lighting conditions, auditory, visual and other stimuli, etc.), and also interact with a variety of internal factors that determine the physiological state of the animal. Different elements of behavior are closely related to each other. The crow of a rooster, according to another animal behavior researcher E. Holst, is heard after artificially irritating a number of nerve centers, unrelated to this sound reaction. Thus, crowing is stimulated by prolonged cackling, “swearing,” repeated warning cries, as well as some consecutive movements: bending the head, jumping, etc. If such actions were performed by the rooster repeatedly (as a result of electrical irritation of the corresponding brain center), then after 5. ..for 10 seconds he began to crow for no apparent reason.

Oddly enough, it was thanks to its crowing that the rooster became a pet.

Probably, even primitive people saw in the rooster, loudly proclaiming the onset of a new day, a mysterious messenger of supernatural forces, the deity of the Sun. It is known that wild roosters were domesticated as cult animals in ancient india(III...II millennium BC). Eating the meat of roosters was strictly prohibited, but at the same time it was allowed to hunt and eat wild chickens. Only much later in ancient Europe did the meat of domestic chicken, and then eggs, begin to be eaten.

K. FABRY, Candidate of Biological Sciences