When I first got Silkies I was told not to mix large fowl with them. I learned the hard way. My 2 day-old Silkie chicks were raised w/ a variety of 4 other large fowl chicks in the same hatch. As the large fowl chicks grew larger and faster than the 2 little bantam chicks did, the Silkies got picked on by the bigger chicks. They had to hide all day from the large fowl chicks and had to run and sneak food & water and got picked on again. Just because Silkie chicks are raised w/ large fowl chicks of the same age doesn't necessarily mean they get along. We also noticed that young large fowl pullets introduced to adult Silkies got along well w/ each other until the large fowl matured at 2 and 3 yrs old and started to bully the smaller gentler Silkies.
Our first large fowl introduced to our 2 grown Silkies were a White Leghorn and Cuckoo Marans and later Buff Leghorns and Blue Wheaten Ameraucana. Only the timid Ameraucana did not abuse the Silkies so we re-homed the Legs and Marans. Later we introduced a docile Blue Breda to the Silkies and a BW Ameraucana. It was the best gentle combination of breeds - Ameraucana and Breda w/ Silkies.
We lost the Blue Breda and Ameraucana during a brutal heatwave but recently added another gentle Cuckoo Breda w/ the Silkies and it is working so well we have another Blue Breda on order to join this group.
It has been easier for us to introduce docile large fowl pullet breeds to adult Silkies rather than introduce juvenile Silkies to a mature large fowl flock. Also, I would never keep less than 2 Silkies if large fowl are in the flock. Silkies may not be the best of buddies w/ each other but they seem to toodle around together during the day away from the large fowl.
So, there's no easy answer about mixing Silkies w/ large fowl. I am zoned for no more than 5 hens/no roos so I have to be more selective about the large fowl I mix w/ my 2 old Silkies. If there is a large area for breeds to split apart and Silkies can have areas safe from large fowl than experiment to see what breeds don't bully the Silkies. In researching large fowl breeds it seemed the Ameraucana, Auraucana, Breda, Cochin, Dominique, Dorking, Easter Egger, Faverolles, Houdan, Pavlovskaya, Polish, Sultan, and possibly Sussex or Turkens were gentle large fowl breeds I considered might mix well w/ bantam Silkies. But then, chickens are individuals and some can still turn out snotty. Breeds I have personally eliminated (not because I don't like them but because they might be too large, or heavy, or aggressive, for our Silkies): Barred Rock, Brahma, Cream Legbar, Icelandic, Leghorn, New Hampshire Red, Marans, Orp, 'Lorp, Rhode Island Red, Swedish Flower Hen, Wyandotte, Java, Jersey Giant. Some of these breeds I eliminated because of their size more than temperament.
