can you keep chickens and bantams together?

[chickenherder]

Hi
I have heard you cannot keep chickens and bantams together unless they were together from chicks, is this correct? as we have two new bantams who are dying to join the others, but we are worried the big birds will pick on them.
Carol

[Meekle]

a lot depends on the characters of the birds themselves. i have succesfully kept hamburg bantams and hybrid layers together in a large run, but they did have room to get out of the way if needs be. In one of my growing pens, i just lob them all in together. i have had pekins, araucana, dorking, marsh daisy, sussex, silkie and blue splash orpington chicks all in the same run together. However, i have had some hybrid hens that will not tolerate other birds in with them at all.

in fact this very night, i have combined some brooders together (as it seems daft to run three brooders for 6 different types of chicks) in the brooder i have a mixture of pekin chicks, maran chicks, light sussex chicks and cochin chicks (all at about 1 week old) and in the other i have placed the texas quail, some barbu d'anver bantam (all aged around 1 week) and then lobbed in a day old lemon cuckoo cochin chick as he is about the same size as the bantam chick which has a week's head start.

The best advice i can give you is to suck it and see. the best way to introduce them is at night, by placing the newcomers into the house under the cover of darkness. this way when they wake up they will think they have always been there. Expect a few squaks and a few little displays of fighting etc for the next couple of days as they literally sort out the new pecking order. However, if you notice them being bullied or the bantams huddling away from the others, i would extract them and give it up as a game they dont want to play.

[spinning jenny]

I agree with everything said above. I also always put them in at night then keep an eye on them. I wouldn't tend to put them in a small run together but if plenty of space is available then they should be ok. You might hear the odd squawk or to but it isn't usually too bad. If there was a cock bird there I would be very careful as he will love some new ladies and if they are little it could prove fatal for the little banties but to be honest I wouldn't put them in. Maybe others have an opinion on this?

[chickenherder]

Hi.
Many thanks for the advice, we will give them a try together.
Carol.

[Meekle]

fingers crossed. be ready to "extract" them if all doesnt go to plan. make sure you are around for the first day or two, rather than chuck them in and go out for the day. you need to be on hand just in case