Can a single banty live with regular sized chickens?

[speckledhen]

I have that exact situation, with over 40 standards and 1 lone banty Cochin pullet. She gets by okay and has attached herself to a GLW and my crossbreed BR/Ameraucana pullet, Panda, as her "mamas". She does get chased; in fact, a couple of them were doing tag-team chasing of my poor little shrimpo girl yesterday. She was yelling at the top of her lungs and ran to the rooster, who didn't seem to notice her. Finally, she ran inside the coop to get away and break the cycle.

 

[65browneyes]

I found myself in a similar situation several weeks ago, but with a young(ish) only chick who's mama had decided she'd had it with motherhood. I couldn't leave my Snickers out by herself, but worried about her being so small and young and all "alone" in the big bad world of the big girls, even though I do have 5 little TINY banties in the coop, too who are smaller than she is. She's my baby, tho.

So.......I built "The Sanctuary".......

It's large enough for her to have food and water in it if need be, but small enough not to take up a ton of space in their run.

She actually hangs out in it a lot. As you can see in the pic, the others like to hang out ON it.

Might you be able to use this idea?

 

[speckledhen]

Cute idea. I would bet my silly little one would be difficult and not want to go inside, LOL. She runs to Vada and Panda to protect her.

 

[Badhbh]

Mr. and Mrs. Worthington were my only truly tiny bantams. Now that Mr. is gone, Mrs. is still in the coop with the bog girls, and holding her own QUITE well. She took on one of the new BLRW the other day, and was sufficiently scary to make the new chick back down

(She's a Porcelain D'Uccle, BTW.)

 

[carwinew]

My sole surviving banty is very happy with all the big chickens. She does think she should be the broody hen for everyone though and I have found as many as 8 eggs peeking out from under her wings. I don't think she understands how little she is.
The two roosters leave her alone but I also think she can outrun them too.
I say rescue the banty but you might need to watch out for her for a few days as the pecking order gets restablished.

 

[JennsPeeps]

I got a 3-month old banty cochin pullet (Tribble) when my 3 standard pullets were 2 months old. They were all about the same size. The standards are now much bigger and have no problems with the banty. In fact, they rarely challenge her. I don't think she's at the top of the pecking order but she's not the bottom either (the RIR is, I suspect).

Tribble has a crossed beak. She can be kind of bossy toward the others and even pushes them out of the way by pecking at them when they're eating her fav food: yogurt. She's so short that when they're FR-ing in my back yard and she loses sight of them, she freaks out & does her buk BWAK call. It's pretty funny.

So yes: a single banty can do just fine w/ standards.