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The first time I heard that particular utterance from him early morning, I sat up and listened, wondering what animal was dying on my property. His voice gets better later in the day, thank All that's Holy! But he puts so much into every crow, that the ending air-out-of-a-balloon wheeze is pretty darn scary. I keep wondering if he's going to turn blue and fall over right there.
As far as his other "issues" (besides the, hopefully, evolving teenage voice), he has been okay with me, getting out of my way when I walk toward him, letting me touch him on the roost w/o offering to nip. This morning, I opened his pen and two of the three girls shot out. Hector tried to walk out before the last girl and all I did was point my finger down at him and say, "No, wait for your girls, Hector, stay there." He stopped, let her go around him and didn't move until I said, "Okay, you can go". So, he's behaving for the time being. He still hasn't gone over the edge and actually flogged me. That is the "straw breaks back" moment I hope never happens.
But, I want to be really clear, and I think you, Mary, really understand, though he and the girls were a very generous gift for which I am so grateful, and I do like him for a lot of reasons, if he ever progresses to flogging or just renews his rear sneak attack bites and won't stop, he will have to be rehomed. I've never once seen a rooster stop flogging once he starts. He may quit for awhile, but eventually, the behavior continues. I have chased Hector with the long switches, swatted his bum, and "claimed" his girls for myself and intimidated him right back, but I can't carry a weapon around all the time and I just won't do it. There has to be a point where I can actually trust him.
I wish I had had room to keep one or two other males for awhile longer, or even the entire batch, but because I had already committed to buying the Brahma eggs (pretty much 3 years earlier) and these coincided with the Brahmas and I knew I'd be growing out and keeping as many of those Brahmas as possible, I just wasn't equipped to keep more than the BR quad. Thankfully, my friend, Andrew, generously offered to give me hatching eggs from the group, or any birds he owns, any time I say the word. So, they are still "in the family", so to speak.
