Newbie needs advice!

[songbird]

Hi all,

I'm hoping you can answer more questions for me as I start down this chicken-road! Probably a stupid question, but can I put Bantams and standards together, or will the little girls get picked on?

Also, I'm curious about caponing. I was looking into ordering chicks, and a couple of the breeds only come as straight-run. I don't especially want a rooster b/c I have lots of little (human) kids. Will caponing make a rooster more docile?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Delta2 23]

You can put standards and bantams together- it doesn't depend on their size, it depends on their "newness". My neighbour has four chickens and the newest two, despite being big chickens, always get picked on by the little ones, who were there already.

Sorry, I don't have roosters, I don't know what caponing is. But roosters are mostly nice chickens too and if they get used to you they won't attack you so much. So maybe you'd like to go with your kids and hold the big boy back and let them stroke him so he'll get used to them.

Hope this help!