Yep - bantams tend to be quite broody. I also don't want to raise bantams but I have a few anyway. My Sultan was a "Please, can't I have this one - its so cute" chick when I made the mistake of taking my daughter to the feed store with me one day. I was also gifted a silkie by one friend and 3 cochins by another. Silkies and Cochins are VERY broody birds! So between them and the Sultan mix that was hatched by surprise, I have plenty of birds to set for me. I don't incubate their eggs but give them large fowl eggs to raise and yes, it is quite comical when the chicks get big. My best cochin went broody Nov '13. I gave her only one egg because I didn't want to raise a bunch of chicks at that time of the year. It hatched to be a cockerel and since I needed a back up rooster at the time, I kept him. He is now one of my head roosters and is an enormous heritage Barred Rock (think twice the size of a hatchery barred rock). To see him now, next to his "mama" it is pretty amazing that he ever fit under her. However with their being only one chick at that time, it worked out fine. She mothered him until he was past 12 weeks of age but was able to fit under her longer than if there had been multiple chicks in that clutch. At 12 weeks he was bigger than her but still trying to sleep under her and it was pretty funny to see him on the roost with just his head tucked under her wing
One thing I've experienced though is that broodiness tends to be contagious. I got the bantams to be my broody and mama hens, but as soon as they started to go broody, my large fowl birds did as well. At one point last year I had 20+ broody hens. They took up all the nest boxes - sometimes squeezed 3 to a box, and set up nests on the floor of the coop, or created secret nests in other parts of the yard. You know you have too many birds when you walk out one morning and find a newly hatched chick shrieking for its mother - and you didn't know you had any chicks due. Then, when a hen finally approaches and clucks to her chick, you realize she's been in a secret nest for the last 3 weeks and you hadn't even missed her - yikes!
One thing I've experienced though is that broodiness tends to be contagious. I got the bantams to be my broody and mama hens, but as soon as they started to go broody, my large fowl birds did as well. At one point last year I had 20+ broody hens. They took up all the nest boxes - sometimes squeezed 3 to a box, and set up nests on the floor of the coop, or created secret nests in other parts of the yard. You know you have too many birds when you walk out one morning and find a newly hatched chick shrieking for its mother - and you didn't know you had any chicks due. Then, when a hen finally approaches and clucks to her chick, you realize she's been in a secret nest for the last 3 weeks and you hadn't even missed her - yikes!
