Uncharted Heritage

This year we are going to try companion planting. One of the benefits of companion planting is protection from pests and diseases when planting in the right combinations.

I have been studying the vegetable companion guide in Storey's Basic Country Skills (picture below), as well as various online resources.

I debated about whether or not I wanted to share this. But this is part of our homesteading experience, so I am going to journal it. Maybe someone else is having the same issues? Maybe things can work out differently for them?

When we first got our chickens a year ago, we picked up six of the "Sex-Link (Female) Tetra Brown" chicks from Tractor Supply's Chick Days. Most of the time when you get any sex-link females you are warned that there is only a 90% guarantee that they are actually female. One of our six chicks ended up being a rooster.

Once we figured out we had a rooster, we begin asking around to see if anyone would want him. Apparently, no one wants roosters. Oh well, we thought. He sure was pretty and we knew that there could be benefits to having a rooster, such as helping to "protect" the girls.


For a little while things seemed okay. He stayed with the girls. He alerted us to their location. He became protective...increasingly too protective.

First he began trying to attack me. I was pregnant (with twins) last summer. I couldn't move around easily. And had to be very careful around him. We were worried he might try to attack our daughter. So we ended up having to keep him locked up in the coop area. Unfortunately, the girls were affected by this, as it was difficult to let them free range without letting him out too. (As he got more aggressive and amorous, he began pulling out the hens' feathers, but that is a whole other blog that you can check out by clicking HERE.)

Eventually even coming close to the fencing would cause him to charge. The only person he did not try to attack was my husband. If he was free-ranging in the yard and my husband was outside, he generally kept his distance from all of us. But if John was not out there, he would charge us.

Our daughter eventually began to get afraid to go outside to play, even if the rooster was put up. We definitely didn't want her afraid to go outside.

Sometimes you have to think with your head, and not with your heart.

The last straw was soon after trying out the chicken saddles. It was time to close the coop door for the night and "Fred the Rooster" attempted to attack John. Fred doesn't 'live' here anymore. We will just leave it at that.