I had one Bresse that was very tame and loved attention and sat on my shoulder. I thought it was a pullet and named her Molly. Well Molly turned out to be a cockerel and now is stand-offish and even a little nippy. But, other (Dom) cockerels I've had calmed down after they matured.
I haven't read the whole thread, but my salmon faverolles chicken are very large, and in France are used for meat and eggs. There isn't a more docile chicken or rooster, so much so, that they can be pushed around in a mixed flock. The hatchery version are smaller, but if you can get some nice ones from a breeder, their coloring and size are better.
They will overcome that problem quickly. My Bresse are by far the best layers of very large eggs of all of the 15 breeds I own.I got the first two pullet eggs from the Bresse this morning! One was soft shell and broke, but the other is perfect and weighs 39g not too bad for a first egg. I started them on oyster shell now.
I checked the calendar. I was wrong about their age. They are 20 weeks old today.
That is a downside of the Bresse roos. They also can be human aggressive if allowed to grow too old. My sister had the same problem. My Birchen Marans were hostile from 16 weeks on. Never again.I had one Bresse that was very tame and loved attention and sat on my shoulder. I thought it was a pullet and named her Molly. Well Molly turned out to be a cockerel and now is stand-offish and even a little nippy. But, other (Dom) cockerels I've had calmed down after they matured.
I really want to add them. But I already have 15 breeds and need to make some serious choices this winter about which breeds stay and which go. I am paying around $300 a month just for poultry feed.DCchicken, holy smokes! All delectible choices. Now thats a class act! Have you thought about adding the Malines to that list at all?
