I have a lot of bantam hens that go broody, and I set them with eggs from my mixed standard-sized flock. I let the mamas raise the chicks until they're ready to return to their flocks, at around 4-8 weeks, then I keep all the chicks together until about 20 weeks. I try to sell the pullets early, as soon as I know for certain their sex, and keep the cockerels together. There usually isn't any problem with them fighting, they grow up together & seem well used to each other. Sometimes I'll let them free-range all day so they can find some of their own feed. It doesn't seem to affect the amount or tenderness of their meat. I begin feeding them layer pellets at around 10 weeks because it's cheaper than the chick feed. I process them in small batches at around 18-20 weeks, taking the biggest ones first and letting the others grow some more.
I don't usually set bantam eggs because I don't like having a lot of bantam roosters around. They can be more feisty than their larger flockmates, they're more difficult to sell, and they're barely worth the effort to process. I do anyway. If somebird is causing a lot of fights I will separate him, but it's a bother having a lot of extra pens to tend. Once I went out to the yard to find a commotion going on in the round meatbird pen I made from a trampoline frame. The big roos were running in circles squawking. I feared a raccoon or dog had gotten in there. But when I bent to look it was a tiny bantam roo chasing the rest of his flockmates around, like a bronco buster cracking a whip, making the flock run away in fear.
You may want to have this thread moved to Meat Birds, Etc or at least go read through the other threads on this topic there. There's a lot of other folks there doing just what you described.
I was hoping that you Guys and Gals could show me how you keep your extra roosters? The 2 bantam roosters that I haven't sold yet got in fight last week thankfully I was right there to scare off the dominant roo and put the comb pecked one in my big brooder with a few pullets.
