No this won't work. 46 + 9 =55 head? You would need a huge coop of about 220 square feet, 20 x 11. Oh wait, and 6 bantams...bad case of chicken math. It really won't work, it will really be a wreck. I don't mean to rain on your parade, but sell some birds. Keep them till they feather out and are fun to watch and play, but when they stop being chicks, and older, start selling birds. I figure you can keep about 30 full size birds in your current set up, and if you have laws regulating the size of the coop, you need to stay within that.
And space is space - where are your kids going to play? Young kids playing naturally often times do not work well with chickens. Visiting the coop a couple times a day is different than sharing a play space with them. (See the part on roosters)
Start talking to your kids about the difference in keeping individual birds and keeping a flock, with birds coming and going into the flock. A lot of chickens die, rather young, it is too bad, but it happens. Talk about when you loose birds, then there is room for new birds, the circle of life. These are important life lessons.
Start talking to your kids now about being realistic. Really talk about how important it is to keep a healthy happy flock, verses keeping birds over crowed in misery. Maybe have each child pick one or two that is being kept.
It is very hard to imagine all these chicks as big hens, but they will be there. Over crowded chickens live miserable lives, and develop horrible habits such as feather picking, pecking holes in each other, bullying, and some victims can even die.
That is the reality of chickens. They are NOT BFF. Being raised together means nothing to them. Letting out for a couple of hours each day cannot compensate for too small of a coop. Humans have kept them as livestock, and for a healthy happy flock, one has to follow animal husbandry, which is different than keeping pets.
I am not sure where you are in the world, but mine in western SD go to the roost by 4:15 and don't come off before 7:15 during the dark days of winter. That is a long time to be in a overcrowded area.
This many birds are going to have a huge feed bill, and a huge manure pile. They are going to take a lot of time for the chores. They are going to be producing a huge amount of eggs, which can become a problem on itself. Reducing the size of your flock is very important animal husbandry and responsible chicken keeping. Selling the birds will pay for a lot of feed, another good lesson in management.
And then, there is the roosters. As AArt says, roosters are where the romance of chickens meets reality. Cockerels are a crap shoot. If you have kids under the age of 6, I would not recommend keeping a cockerel. Multiple roosters increases the chance of it going horribly wrong. Roosters can become very aggressive, and inexperienced people tend to vastly underestimate the violence of an attack. Kids can take the attack at face level - endangering their eyes and faces. These will be hard, as they are most darling and friendly of your chicks. BUT THEY CHANGE, and because they were friendly tends to work against people, and they become unafraid and aggressive towards people. Roosters have ruined the whole chicken experience for a lot of people.
And then there is the bantams - some people get bantams to mix well with a full size flock, and some have an ongoing disaster. Overcrowding will really push the disaster.
Not what you wanted to read, I know. And at first, one is so excited, and the extra chicks seem like they were ordained to be yours, but that is not the case. Selling point of lay pullets should be easy and profitable. The roosters will be harder. Start now, looking for solutions to too many roosters. The sooner the better with them. Of course you can process them for eating, but you may not be comfortable with that, but that is a life lesson. If not, do actively start looking how you are going to get them out of your flock.
As I stated before, you can cheat in the summer, but come fall, you have to measure your coop, count heads and make the number of birds fit the coop you have at that time. More birds than that is disaster waiting to happen, often times a bloody, ugly disaster is my experienced realistic view.
Remember, and remind your kids, you have years to enjoy this hobby. There are many different aspects of this hobby, but more is not better.
Dear me, I hope I do not sound too rough, I know you want to do what is right, but I know you want to keep them all right now, and it really won't work. Perhaps I have misconstrued your set up, and you have options I did not pick up on, but in your current set up this will really not work.
Mrs K
