Not only in birds, but also in animals, males are more brightly colored than females. What is the reason for this? Yes, just males need to seduce a female. And females, as a rule, hatch and raise offspring. For these purposes, they need a less bright color. This is a kind of protection against predators. But people have the opposite.
But why are chickens and roosters colored differently? The hens have a pronounced anatomical structure - sexual demorphism. From women
Male chickens are distinguished by their colorful plumage. The plumage is most prominent on the neck and on the magnificent long tail. In roosters, bone outgrowths - spurs - appear on the lower leg. Both the chicken and the rooster have a distinctive comb and beard on their heads. The comb and beard are organs of thermoregulation. They redirect blood flow to the skin. Usually the crest of a rooster is larger than that of a chicken.
Now we have found out why chickens and roosters are colored differently. But maybe their condition is somehow affected by the conditions of detention? Let's look at the content of laying hens at home.
In houses, chickens are usually grown on the floor, using litter. Sometimes poultry farmers keep livestock in cages or on mesh floors.
Floor content
This system provides for the placement of chickens on a deep litter of water-intensive and loose materials with low thermal conductivity. With outdoor cultivation, the bird can move more, and this positively affects its health. Before planting a batch of birds, the litter is laid in a thick layer of about 20 cm. It is removed only after the end of the maintenance of the bird.
Mesh Flooring
If up to five birds are placed per square meter during outdoor cultivation, then when grown on mesh floors, up to twelve birds are placed. Here, the capacity of the house is increased by two and a half times.
Cages
This method is more progressive than placing the bird on a mesh floor. So the bird is kept on large
poultry farms producing eggs. In the home apartments of chickens in cages, almost no one contains.
But how does feeding of laying hens take place? They feed twice a day with full-feed dry food. The level of filling of the feeders depends on the amount of poured feed. It should not exceed two-thirds of the feeder.
Feeding with dry compound feed provides for the daily norm: about 120 g of feed per one layer. For a year, one chicken consumes about 44 kg of feed. If juicy and green fodder is included in the diet of laying hens, then the volume of the daily norm increases to 170 g or more.
Juicy and green feeds have a beneficial effect on the state of the organism of rushing chickens, their productivity and vitality. We tried to find out why chickens and roosters are colored differently. We see that neither the content nor the feeding completely affects the color of the plumage.
Chickens are probably the most common birds on planet Earth. According to some estimates, now their number exceeds 13 billion! Humanity receives from chickens about 600 billion eggs a year.
Of course, everyone is interested to know why chickens and roosters are colored differently. But you must admit, this question does not interest anyone when a delicious scrambled egg is served at the dinner table.