[BML]

I intended to just have two hens in the chicken house and run that I'm building but my youngest daughter, now nearly forty, remembering the chickens she had as a child asked if she could have one of her own in our hen house.  This has created a slight problem the first of which was, how could we determine which eggs her chicken laid but she resolved that matter by sugesting that she could have a Bantam.  The other problems exist because I have only built two laying boxes although I may be able to redesign them but it raises two further questions.
1.  Do Bantams mix with ordinary Chickens?
2.  If there were only two laying boxes would it be a matter of, first come first laying and    the chicken left on the floor would either get egg constipated, try to invade an ocupied laying box or just lay its egg on the floor.

[joyfull]

I have 32 nest boxes and they only lay in 4 (OK some also lay elsewhere - 1 in an old sink, another in an old lorry and others somewhere I have yet to find  ) but as a general rule of thumb you only need 1 nest box per 3 birds so you will be fine with the two you have. You may find they prefer just the 1 and will wait very impatiently for whoever is in there laying to finish - mine can be seen chuntering and tapping their feet and beaks on the door entrance as if to say come on and hurry up I need to go there  .
I have a mixture of guinea fowl, large fowl hens, bantam hens and true bantam hens (plus several cockerels) and they mix really well.
In order to sort out whose eggs are whose why not get a white layer, a brown layer and a blue egg layer 

[ManicMum]

I love the idea of coloured eggs - the mixture looks so appealing in the box or on the EggSkelter or wherever you keep them in the kitchen.

Very happy at present with 3rd hand non-laying ex-batts, but aspiring to coloured eggs!
my friend's 6 hens all lay on the same nest, despite the availability of another.

[Chookiechook]

I have ten egg layer hens and they all have to share one box!!!  I rarely get an egg on the floor of the run, seldom get one in the house but sometimes see three hens moulded into one giant hen all looking very snug..... probably drawing straws to see who gets up first!!

Pekin flock have a choice of zillions of places to lay and mostly choose an abandoned cardboard box that had sale chickens in it!!!

Serama just lay in house but stop laying completely if there is any poo in it!!!

They will adapt

I have had bantams in with large fowl... so long as they have a strong character they will be fine

[BML]

Many thanks for all the loverly answers.

[hillfooter]

I have a house with 5 bantams (2 cocks, 3 hens Spangled Orlof) and 5 large fowl (Vorwerks.)  All the hens lay in one nestbox despite having 4 boxes.  This is perfectly sensible and normal behaviour as they are laying a clutch of eggs for the flock which will be hatched by a single broody.  Chx don't lay individually and hatch only their own eggs.  A flock is a cooperative community.

HF

[AL Hathaway]

I intended to just have two hens in the chicken house and run that I'm building but my youngest daughter, now nearly forty, remembering the chickens she had as a child asked if she could have one of her own in our hen house.  This has created a slight problem the first of which was, how could we determine which eggs her chicken laid but she resolved that matter by sugesting that she could have a Bantam.  The other problems exist because I have only built two laying boxes although I may be able to redesign them but it raises two further questions.
1.  Do Bantams mix with ordinary Chickens?
2.  If there were only two laying boxes would it be a matter of, first come first laying and    the chicken left on the floor would either get egg constipated, try to invade an ocupied laying box or just lay its egg on the floor.

I have 6 little bantam's in with 8 Large Foul and our head hen is a barnevelder Bantam and her 2nd is a silver laced wyandotte Bantam. we have a 9hole nest box and funny enough they love to use only the bottom 2 holes, the only one that goes in to all of them is our silly little Poland that loves to play in the nest boxes.

[the witters]

Hi BML we have just four hens (three hybrids and one bantam) and they all live quite happily together although Poppy (the bantam) is bottom of the pecking order being only 3/4 the size of the others, although there have never been any aggression.  However they were all bought at the same time so have always lived together.
You will have to be careful introducing new birds to an existing group as there will be feathers flying until the pecking order is established again. It will help if you introduce new birds at night when they are roosting and if possible more than one bird. Two bantams perhaps?
As for nesting/ laying all my birds use the same nest box - even though there is more than one available- and simply take it in turn!
Hope this may be of some help.

The witters.

[bantam novice]

I don't think there would be a problem with keeping bantams and chickens together. 

It is important to remember to quarantine the new bird(s) before you introduce her(them).  Best if you can set up quarantine quarters in sight of the other birds so that they can see and get used to each other.  You can get more info about this by typing quarentine into the search box in the top right-hand corner.

I agree that introduction at night is a good way to proceed but still be ready with purple spray (gentian violet) as there could still be agressive behaviour until the pecking order is established.