How to Stop a Rooster from Crowing

Roosters tend to crow upon waking up, and since roosters tend to wake up prior to sunrise. We’re more likely to assume this is dawn than earlier because humans tend to wake up at dawn, not earlier. It’s likely their crowing is in part a response to waking up ("Hey guys! I’m awake now!") and when the sun starts to shine through their coop, they respond to the light as well. Also, early morning crowing is often a territorial and dominance establishing ritual, especially if there is more than one rooster or they can hear each other across different yards; it is the dominant rooster that crows first, followed by the subordinate roosters. As the morning goes on, most other forms of rooster crowing are likely forms of varied communications, like being bothered by something or showing off to the hens in courtship displays.

Roosters crow as a form of communication, just like humans talk to each other. Crowing can mean many different things, such as letting other roosters and hens know where they are, establishing dominance in the face of other roosters (telling then "this is my territory"), scaring away potential predators, showing off to the hens, responding to sounds they’ve heard (including roosters heard far away), reacting to light, etc.

A rooster crowing in the middle of the night might be responding to another rooster he has heard or perhaps he is dealing with a disturbance in the coop, like hens getting upset for some reason, a flash of a car light, or to warn the coop inhabitants of an intruder, like a fox. Roosters have an acute sense of hearing, so they’re easily disturbed and if so, they’re usually making a noise to either warn of or ward off possible dangers in the dark. Or, a rooster may just decide that having a bit of crow in the middle of the night will alleviate his boredom, especially if he wakes up early and the other chickens are still asleep.