Bantam rooster and BIG girls

Mommysongbird

Crowing
12 Years
Mar 17, 2011
1,230
18
286
Small Town, Virginia
Can he REALLY mate with them and produce fertile eggs????

We have a mixture of chickens, some RIR, Speckled Sussex (all pullets) and then we have our Red Sex Links, EE's and 2 others that I have NO idea what they are. But this is the only rooster we have. We are trying to find a mate just for him, but not going so well.

I have been told different things by different people and wanted to ask here. Can this little rooster produce fertile eggs and if so, can and will those eggs hatch and will the babies be okay, like with no genetic issues????

We have a mallard duck that may have some kind of genetic issue, she is the same age as our other mallards but her eggs are still so tiny, no bigger than a golf ball and some are as round as a golf ball.
 
You may be surprised by his ability to manage fertilization of your large gals. I have a VERY mixed flock, many breeds and many sizes. LOTS of mixes resulting from the different breeds. My Silkie and bantam Cochin roosters have offspring in the flock from regular sized hens.

Max never succeeded with the largest gals, the Orpingtons, but it sure was a silly sight when he tried. ;)

I have not observed any genetic defects in the offspring. Bantam daddies may cause smaller than usual chicks from large fowl hens, but they're larger than the bantam breed sizes of chicks. Kinda grow up to be not quite full sized., sorta mid-way larger, if that makes sense.

I also have large fowl roosters in the flock. It's quite fun to see Max's offspring because he is not the dominant rooster. Just sneaky. ;)
 
As @gryeyes said they can and do mate with others, though I have found that the fertility rate isn't as high as it is with the big boys ( we did think our rooster was shooting blanks but that was not the case) either way it shouldn't be a problem, and it is nice to see the 'under dog' or under roosters in this case still winning with some off spring. I have found that they seem to have more problems with the big puff balls ( Orpingtons, full sized Cochins etc etc) At one point I had 3 Silkie roosters all in together ( brothers that got along fine, though only one was meant to be a boy...) and they would team up to get the girls which I found amusing. one would climb up to a high point ( approx 40 cm) and them 'fly' down and land on its back to get it.

Some people who have fluffy bottomed chickens trim back the feathering ( if they aren't for showing) so that there is less fluff in the way. I always do this to my roosters at the start of breeding season anyways since I don't show.
 
So if this happens, will I need to worry about eggs sizes from the offspring girls or laying issues???

I have had 2 broody hens, but I have been discouraging them from sitting on any eggs because I was afraid of something weird happening. LOL

This is good to know. Thank you so much.
 
no there shouldn't be any problems. however a full sized rooster over bantys is never good idea if they are to big then they will crush the hens. if you do sit some eggs I would be interested to see some photos of how they turn out.
 
No egg size /laying issues from the big girls. They will lay the same sized eggs they "are meant" to lay. Being bred doesn't change that.

If, however, (for folks with banty hens and LF roosters) a banty hen lays eggs fertilized by a LF rooster, hatching chicks may be more difficult, because the embryo will grow larger inside the egg than the hen would have "normally" produced. This may or may not cause late incubation death from too little space for the chick inside to develop completely.

Most of my bantam hens are too quick to get caught by the large roosters.... They fly!
 

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