Can you mix bantams and regulars?

[cupman]

Can you add bantams to a flock that has all regular sized chickens? I have a rooster, do I need to worry about him trying to mate with the bantams and hurting them? Thanks

 

[Chickie'sMoma]

yes you can mix LF with bantams. but be careful since some LF breeds can be destructive to smaller birds and may kill them if they aren't properly socialized or introduced slowly. i've raised most of my birds together since they were chicks so this may be why mine get along as well as they do. some LF productions breeds are aggressive on birds not the same type as them.

a LF roo can harm a bantam if he is too aggressively chasing and mounting the bantam girls. especially if he is still young and hasn't figured out how to balance on her. bantam hens usually max out around 2lbs, so a roo larger than 5 or 6lbs can smother a hen into the ground.

 

[cupman]

oh scary. maybe I'll just build a whole new coop strictly for bantams.. right after I build my quail cage and duck pond. ahh so many projects I want to do.

 

[NewHawaiiChick]

I can just speak from experience: we had bantams first, then added the larger breeds. One of the larger chickens turned out to be a rooster and we believe he killed 3 or our 5 bantams (a couple may have been males, but we had a hard time telling!). The last two are perfectly incorporated into the flock now. AND I just hatched three bantam eggs that are a mix with this larger rooster. So interested to see what they'll end up looking like!