What the first crow tells you

A CROWING ROOSTER can be an annoying thing, and there are all kinds of theories about how to persuade a rooster to do it at a reasonable time of day. Most don’t work, and here’s why.

The time a rooster begins crowing depends on his internal biological clock – research shows you can’t trick them, even if you deliberately put them into darkness for 24 hours – but that first crowing rooster tells you who the boss man is, and then who is where in the pecking order after that.

The first morning crow begins at the time deemed by the rooster highest in the pecking order.

Once the boss has crowed, the secondin-command crows, followed by any others in descending order, and roosters know to wait until the rooster ahead of them in the hierarchy has crowed. When researchers in Japan who tested the theory then removed the head rooster, the second-incommand took over and the rest followed in the same order.