Uncharted Heritage

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.

Unfortunately something killed Henrietta, one of our hens, last night.

We allow our chickens to free range during the day. They always go into the coop as it is starting to get dark, and then we close it up and lock them in for the night.

As John was going to check on them around dusk, he found some frightened chicks that had been scattered - a few had made it to the coop, but a  couple were still out and all seemed upset. He caught the couple that he found outside and put them inside with the others. He did his count, and one was missing. We began searching immediately for our missing hen. We did not find her, but we did find her feathers. From the looks of it, it must have been a hawk. We know there is a nest in the area, and we have seen some flying occasionally.

Our chickens had always done well to stay somewhat hid while they were outside of the coop. They would tend to go from cover to cover, i.e. bushes. There also are guinea birds that are similar size that have been fine running around our yard for years, so we took for granted that the chicks were somewhat safe. We just weren't careful enough. We didn't take the right precautions. We learned a very valuable lesson the hard way. We like all the chicks in our little flock, but admittedly, Henrietta was definitely one of our favorites. She was one of the more friendly hens in our group. We will miss her.

So how are we going to change things? For now, the best that we can do is to keep them in the coop unless we are able to supervise them. We will plan to expand their coop/pen as soon as we are able.



Lee Buff (aka Dad), 1959-2012