I have to state that I have no experience with bantams. Cheetah and his daughters are pretty small for standard breeds and Hector, while currently my largest roo, isn't the largest I've ever had.
1. My experience with the little ladies and the large roos: the ladies are way to agile to get caught by the large roos unless they CHOOSE to be.
2. Space, space, and more space. If the ladies get cornered, the roo can nab them anyway. You've got pretty good space, but more is ALWAYS smart. How cluttered is the run? Ways for birds to go up? Things to dodge around? Hide under? Roos can't mate hens if the hens can't provide a stable stand. If where the hen is standing is small, wobbly, has no head space above her, he can't do it.
4. Cotton's behavior is currently hormonal idiot: trying to mate everything he can see/catch. It is a problem when he's not leaving the ladies who aren't ready alone. It also becomes a problem if he's mating one female on an endless repeat. She can't eat, drink, bathe without him hopping aboard.
5. If Nestlé isn't coming to the rescue of the girls too young, then he's not viewing them as his. He sees them as Cotton's ladies. As far as relations between Nestlé and Cotton, this is a good thing. If Cotton is going for Nestlé's girls, and Nestlé isn't defending them either, then Cotton is viewed as senior roo....and a possible solution is to temporarily split the run/coop with Nestlé with the bantams and Cotton with the big girls. The reason I say split is to keep them as a whole flock rather than breaking up the integrations.
6. Can you build some sort of "tree" in the run for perching on/dodging around? I'm sort of envisioning something like a coat stand with much lower/longer "branches". Maybe a 4x4 embedded in a bucket of concrete with 2x4 cross pieces at various heights around it.
7. Bantams (I think) typically reach maturity sooner than the large breeds can...and some of the large breeds take even longer (brahmas for instance don't reach Point Of Lay until 6-8 months and jersey giants don't stop growing until close to 18 months). It's entirely possible that Nestlé hasn't matured yet and is still feeling his way into it. It's also possible the cochin bantams are closer to POL than you think. This part all requires more observation.
8. Chickens feel comfortable when they can see out and feel the predators cannot see in (crawl under a bush and sit looking through the leaves for a bit). Putting things in the run that will emulate that will also help. Roos tend to be Line Of Sight. If the can't see the lady, they aren't trying for her. When they're all lounging under a bush/tree, the roos can see the ladies, but it seems to be a mating isn't allowed safe space. Even chicks doing the head bobbing spat step outside the shelter to do so.
are Nanking Cherries? They're the bushes between the rose patch and the lilacs with a couple of stand alones on the other side of the house.
breakfast time explorations
I wasn’t gonna say this, but I had a strange dream just the other night, where Mr P attempted to eat me!
