7 reasons why roosters wing dance
Roosters do the cutest little dance when they’re excited. Sometimes this excitement may be an expression of positive feelings (like happiness), and sometimes it may be an expression of negative feelings (like anger).
In the video below, you’ll see 7 reasons why roosters wing dance. And I’m sure there are more…
Summary of the video
The wing dance is a little dance roosters do where they drop a shoulder, extend one wing out, and shuffle to the side or in a circle. Sometimes the dance may only last a second. Other times, it may last several seconds.
You can see what it looks like in the video below.
The 7 reasons why roosters wing dance
For courtship
A friendly greeting—“I’m happy to see you!”
A show of dominance (which may lead to attack)
A warning to back off
To play
To save face after submitting to a dominant rooster
An expression of unbridled joy
Below are two of my favorite rooster dancing clips. (And you can see more in my video above.)
This first one shows a happy rooster dancing for his keeper when she gets him excited with music and clapping.
This second one below shows a house rooster dancing because he’s excited about his toys.
People can dance with their roosters too
Proof below.
Roosters: More complicated than most people give them credit for
You can see that roosters dance for all sorts of different reasons, many of them positive.
So, when people in forums and on Facebook chicken groups tell you that if a rooster dances at you, he’s being aggressive, remember that may not be the case. Sometimes, he may even be telling you he loves you.
There’s no reason we should be automatically attaching bad intentions to our roosters’ dances. For more on this topic of rooster intentions, see my post, Roosters are NOT bad!