Banty rooster and full sized hen

[Cryss]

I know (first hand) that a banty rooster can mate with a full sized hen. However I could never tell from the offspring if he had been successful or if it had been the result of my big boy rooster. There was one cockerel that had looked a lot like my banty. However he was huge! So my question now is can a Banti rooster crossed with a full-size hen produce full-size offspring? He particularly likes the big girls like my blue Marens!

 

[NatJ]

my question now is can a Banti rooster crossed with a full-size hen produce full-size offspring?

Sometimes yes. There are a number of different genes that affect size in chickens, and not all of them work the same way, so it would depend on what genes these exact chickens had. (I don't know the details. I only learned enough to recognize that it's somewhat complicated.)

I even read of someone doing an experiment decades ago, crossing various chicken breeds, and one of their crosses produced full-size offspring from bantam parents of two different breeds!

 

[Cryss]

@NatJ
Thank you! I have a banty boy and a big boy. Any offspring I’ve seen have been really big boys so I assumed it was from my big guy. The biggest of all the offspring looked like my banty! That was last year and I’m still confused!