I have three EE roosters; one that I raised from a fuzzy poof with an egg horn (grew up to be a blue splash red pyle wheaten) and two that I got from my girlfriend when they were 3-4 months old with no handling.
My Roo is fantastic. He's wonderful with his girls, never damages any feathers. He keeps them out of trouble (save when the neighbor's dog latched onto one of my EE hens, who luckily survived) and lets them know if anything is eyry. The entire flock follows me wherever I go, as does Roo. He was cuddly and friendly when he was younger, and well into his 'ugly' feather stage. He started getting aloof when I noticed he was quite a bit bigger than the other hens, and that guilty tail feather started to curl. Now his comb hangs over his right eye, so he either states at you with his left eye or tries to 'flip his hair' like a snotty high school girl. If I sit down with scratch, they all come climbing on me. Roo hangs out in the periphery, not mean, not friendly. He's quite the gorgeous gentleman. Now the younger two never had any handling. Even though this is my first season with chickens, it's not my first rodeo with handling babies. The more you handle, the tamer they get. All my chickens will crawl all over me, eat out of my hands and tolerate (maybe not enjoy) handling.
These two guys want nothing to do with me. Roo put them in their places the day they were introduced, and all the hens were mean to them. For several months, they gave me no trouble. Now they're beating up hens, which causes Roo to pummel them. I had one attack me when I was in the coop with Sickie Chickie (the one that got attacked by the dog) and the egg basket. I'm assuming he charged the hen, but I was in the way. He was, once again assuming, attempting to mate, but there were feathers, beaks and claws everywhere. Poor Sickie was getting beat up, so I snagged the rooster by the legs then around the neck, and threw him out of the coop. When I was checking Chickie for new wounds, he came hauling back into the coop, attacked me (I had Chickie in my arms) and deliberately broke all the eggs. Then he kept jumping (and clawing) to try to get to Chickie. I should have strung him up right then, but I was hoping it was a one time incident. Both these guys are very similar in color, but one has the red pyle gene. Now I have to hang out outside to try and figure out which one is the jerk. As EE's are my breeding project, I really don't want to off the wrong rooster.
In all my youth, I never had a good experience with roosters. But all of them were 'coop raised' with minimal or, more likely, no handling. One wouldn't let me out of the car, one wouldn't let me get into the car, one attacked my horse while I was riding (guess how that ended...,) one guarded the tack room (once again, that lasted two days,) one courted me like a hen before he'd spur me and one attacked a toddler (chicken soup that guy, Red Leghorn.) So, lots of positive handling early in their development makes a huge difference. Every animal is different, so you can do everything right and still get a jerk rooster, but at least you tried.
