I've read these same comments from other BYC members, and while this may have been their experience with roosters, It's not a hard and fast rule. I've raised chickens for the past 50 years and have had lots of roosters, both aggressive and non-aggressive, and I haven't seen any correlation between how much they were held. From my observations, it depends more on breed and the individual temperament of the rooster. My children made lap pets of Cochin, Brahma, Orpington, Australorp, Silkie, and Sussex roosters and none of them were ever aggressive. I've had Rhode Island Red, Barred Rock, and Silver Laced Wyandotte roosters that were never held that became aggressive and I ended up culling them from the flock. Others roosters of those same breeds were docile whether or not they were held. The meanest rooster I ever had was a Golden Polish rooster (normally a docile breed) named Ivan that would attack anything and everything in his vicinity. Interestingly enough he never attacked me (I held him a lot but I was the only one who could), but everything thing and everyone else was a target to him. I kept him in a separate pen for a while, but my wife and children were terrified of him and refused to go into the pen and feed him, so I ended getting rid of him. As far as Ameraucanas, I've never had pure Ameraucanas. All of mine have been Easter Eggers, but they have generally been docile birds. They tolerated my children, and now my granddaughter, but they've never seemed to like being handled and neither my children, nor my granddaughter, were really able to make lap pets of them like they did of some of our other breeds.
