A bantam isn’t a breed. It’s a size. So Buff Orpington vs bantam is really a question about one breed in two sizes, because the Buff Orpington comes as a big bird and as a bantam of its own. Cackle Hatchery sells both. It lists its Buff Orpington bantam hen at 36 ounces and its standard Buff Orpington hen at 8 pounds. By my math, the little hen weighs about 28% of what the big one does. That’s a bit more than a quarter.
I rewrote this page from 15 sources, and you’ll find all of them at the bottom. Most of the breed numbers come from Cackle, since it lists both sizes side by side. McMurray and Meyer fill in the big bird. The bantam basics come mostly from university extension writers. When two sources give different numbers, I’ll tell you whose number is whose.
A word on the photos, too. I couldn’t find a free photo of a Buff Orpington bantam that passed my checks. So the bantams you’ll see here are other bantams, labeled as bantams by the folks who took them. The buff bird in the second section is an Orpington pullet. I’ll tell you what each photo shows as we go.
The short version.
- Same breed, two sizes. “Bantam” names the small size, and most big breeds have one.
- Weight. Cackle puts the bantam hen at 36 ounces and the big hen at 8 pounds.
- Eggs. Cackle rates its bantam at 150 or more small eggs a year. Its big Buff gets 150 to 280 large ones, and Cackle calls both figures estimates.
- Broody. Cackle lists both sizes as setters, so either hen may want to hatch a clutch.
Bantam Is a Size, Not a Breed
Francine Bradley of UC Davis put it plainly in her 2004 fact sheet on standard bred poultry: “the term bantam is an adjective and is NOT a breed name”. Those capital letters are hers, not mine. She puts the small forms at one-fifth to one-quarter the size of the large bird.
Gail Damerow, writing on Cackle’s blog, lands in the same spot. She calls a bantam “about one-fourth to one-fifth as big as a standard-size chicken”, generally weighing “no more than 2 pounds”. She also writes, “Nearly every breed and variety of large chicken has a bantam version”. A few breeds come only in the small size, and those are called true bantams. A bantam with a big counterpart is a miniature, and that’s what a Buff Orpington bantam is.
Here’s the part I found most useful. Damerow says miniatures “are not exact miniatures”. Their heads and tails run big for their bodies, she explains, and so do their eggs. She adds that some miniatures came from unrelated bloodlines and only look like the big breed that shares their name.
So if you spot bantam chicks at the feed store, ask which breed they are. The breed is the other half of the name. A Buff Orpington bantam is a Buff Orpington kept small.
Small birds have their own club, too. The American Bantam Association has spoken for bantam breeders since 1914. Its Bantam Standard covers 57 breeds of bantams and bantam ducks, in over 400 varieties.
The black bird up top is a Cochin bantam, going by the photographer, with a white one behind it. We did the same kind of untangling for Barred Rock vs Plymouth Rock, where two names also turn out to mean one breed.
Where the Buff Orpington Came From
Orpingtons are English. The Livestock Conservancy tells how William Cook, a coachman in the Kentish town of Orpington, crossed Minorca roosters with Black Plymouth Rock hens. He then crossed their offspring to clean-legged Langshans. In 1886 he introduced his bird to the public.
That first Orpington was black. Illinois Extension calls the Black Orpington of 1886 “the original Orpington” and says the Buff and White came from other crosses. If you’d like the black side of the family, our Buff Orpingtons vs Australorps page picks up that thread. Orpingtons reached America by 1891, per the Conservancy. Cackle says Buff Orpingtons were first shown in this country in 1899.
Now for the dates that matter on this page. According to the Conservancy, the American Poultry Association took the big Buff Orpington into its Standard of Perfection in 1902. Cackle says the Buff Orpington bantam was admitted in 1960. So the bantam is a recognized bird in its own right, not just a runt of the big line. Cackle has been breeding its own bantam strain since 1987.
Even at a show, the two sizes go in different classes. Cackle lists the big Buff in the English Class. Its bantam goes in “Single Comb Clean Legged (Other than Game) Bantams”. The ABA’s March 2021 list of active varieties carries the Orpington bantam in four colors, and Buff is one of them.
That buff bird in the photo is “A 4 month old Orpington pullet”, according to the person who took it. The photographer didn’t say which size she is. She’s that soft golden color the breed is named for, though. If you’re weighing a Buff Orpington against another golden hen, our Buff Orpington vs Buff Rock page shows how to tell them apart.
How Much Smaller Is the Bantam?
Here are Cackle’s adult weights for its two Buff Orpingtons, side by side.
- Hens. The bantam hen weighs 36 ounces. The big hen weighs 8 pounds, which is 128 ounces.
- Roosters. The bantam rooster weighs 40 ounces. The big rooster weighs 10 pounds, or 160 ounces.
Young birds follow suit. Cackle lists a bantam pullet at 32 ounces and a big pullet at 7 pounds.
My math puts the bantam hen at about 28% of the big hen’s weight, and the bantam rooster at 25% of the big rooster’s. That’s right about where Bradley and Damerow said a bantam should land. Other sources back up the big bird’s weights. McMurray and Meyer both list 10 pounds for a rooster and 8 for a hen, and the Conservancy gives those same figures.
There’s one wrinkle. John Skinner, a poultry science professor at the University of Wisconsin, wrote an extension bulletin on bantams. In it, he says adult bantams generally weigh “between 16 and 30 ounces”. Cackle’s 36-ounce Buff hen sits above that whole range. She also tops Damerow’s 2 pounds, which is 32 ounces. So among bantams, the Buff Orpington is a big one. That’s my read of the numbers, not something a source says outright.
Part of the look is feathers. Meyer says Buff Orpingtons get called “Big Buffs” because they’re “loosely feathered and appear to be heavier than their true weight”. Skinner lists Orpingtons among the loosely feathered breeds, too. He says loose-feathered bantams take 9 months or more to mature, against about 6 months for tight-feathered ones.
The rooster in that photo isn’t a Buff Orpington. The photographer calls him “A little bantam rooster” and doesn’t give a breed. But a bird whose whole head is about the size of two fingers shows you the scale. For a big bird that runs bigger still, see Buff Orpington vs Jersey Giant.
Eggs From Each Size
Cackle’s fact boxes give you the egg side of things.
- Bantam. Small brown eggs, rated “Good 150+ eggs a year”.
- Big Buff. Large light brown eggs, 150 to 280 a year, which Cackle calls estimates only.
Other hatcheries rate the big bird about the same. Meyer says 4 to 6 brown eggs a week, sized large to extra large, with laying starting at 20 to 24 weeks. McMurray calls Buffs “excellent winter layers”. Cackle also sells an exhibition-type Buff, bred for the show ring, and puts that one at 200 medium eggs a year. If you want to know why egg counts swing so much from page to page, our Rhode Island Red egg production page walks through it for another breed.
How big is a bantam egg, then? Skinner says bantam eggs run about two-thirds the size of eggs from large fowl. He adds that they often weigh 15 to 20 ounces a dozen. My math makes that about 1.3 to 1.7 ounces an egg.
Now set that next to the weights. A bantam hen weighs about a quarter of the big hen, yet Skinner puts her egg at about two-thirds the size. That matches what Damerow said about miniatures and their eggs running large. So if Skinner’s general figure holds for Buffs, you give up less egg than you’d guess from the size of the hen. That’s my reading, pieced together from two sources.
Cackle makes a fair point on its big Buff page, too: “a bigger hen does not always lay a bigger egg”. The eggs in the photo are just eggs, by the way. Nobody wrote down which hens laid them.
Feed and Space
A smaller bird eats less, and nobody argues with that. Jacquie Jacob and Tony Pescatore of the University of Kentucky say “standard-size chickens require more feed than their bantam versions”. Skinner says “Bantams require very small amounts of feed”. Neither one gives a pounds-per-week figure for a Buff bantam, so I won’t make one up.
Space shrinks, too. Penn State Extension lists overcrowding as a cause of cannibalism and gives large breeds 2 square feet per bird from 16 weeks on. It says bantams “require half the space as large chickens”. By my math, that’s 1 square foot per bantam. Skinner’s smallest pen is an area 3 feet square for a breeding trio, and he notes “More space is desirable”.
Feed rules don’t change with size. Skinner says to give grit to all bantams. Laying hens should also get oyster shell flakes.
Chicks need one tweak. If you start bantam chicks on wire, Skinner says to use 1/3-inch mesh, since bantams “tend to catch their feet and legs in 1/2-inch mesh”. Roost height doesn’t change at all. Cackle lists 2 to 4 feet for both Buff sizes.
The white bird in the photo is a Cochin bantam from the same shoot as the first photo. That’s the black one behind it.
Broody Hens and Buying Chicks
If you want a hen that’ll hatch her own chicks, both sizes are good bets. Cackle lists its bantam as “Setters” and its big Buff as “Setter”. Meyer calls its Buffs “very broody”. McMurray rates them “extremely likely” to sit. Skinner says many miniatures of the heavy breeds are exceptionally good setters and mothers.
A broody hen still has her limits. In his bantam bulletin, Skinner says not to give a hen more eggs than she can cover, “usually eight to eleven eggs”. Bantam eggs take 21 days to hatch, he says. And Cackle points out a cost on its big Buff page: broodiness “can also pause egg laying”.
Buying chicks is where the two sizes really split. Here’s what I found on October 28, 2026.
- Bantam. Cackle sells it “as Baby Chicks Only”, with no sexing, so you get hens and roosters as they come. Unsexed chicks run $6.99 each for 1 to 9 and drop to $5.80 at 25 or more. They ship early February through mid-August. The day I checked, the listing said “Temporarily Unavailable”.
- Big Buff. Cackle sells chicks sexed or not. Unsexed ones start at $4.49 each for 1 to 4, pullets at $5.99, and Cackle lists its sexing accuracy at 85% to 90%. McMurray’s unsexed Buffs started at $4.95 each for 1 to 5, though they showed as sold out that day.
Since bantam chicks come unsexed, you’ll be sorting out roosters later. Our Buff Orpington rooster vs hen page covers how to tell them apart, and color won’t do it.
Planning to hatch eggs from your own birds? Cackle lists fertility at 40% to 55% for the bantam and 65% to 80% for the big Buff. It suggests 7 hens per rooster for the bantam and 9 for the big bird.
The chicks in the photo weren’t labeled by breed or size. They’re here to show what a clutch looks like, not what a Buff chick looks like.
Can Big and Small Birds Share a Coop?
They can, but keep an eye on them. Cackle’s bantam page says, “Around more aggressive breeds, these bantams may get bullied”. It suggests a flock of other gentle birds, or one where you can watch the pecking order closely. Cackle’s fact boxes call both Buff sizes “Docile”.
Penn State lists mixing as one more cause of pecking. It says “Mixing different ages and sizes of poultry” may promote pecking by upsetting the flock’s pecking order. Skinner says something close about bantam breeds. Each one, he writes, “does best if raised with its own kind”, and some birds get bullied when several breeds are raised together.
Predators worry me more for the little birds. Cackle says “predator protection still matters because bantams are small”. Skinner’s list of things to protect bantams from includes rats and mink, plus the “coon”, which is old shorthand for raccoon. So lock up the run and coop at night with the small birds in mind.
Winter’s the easier part. Cackle says its Buff bantams “handle cold weather well”, especially with dry housing and no drafts. McMurray rates the big Buff’s cold tolerance “excellent”. Both sizes wear a single comb, though. Jacquie Jacob says combs and wattles are the parts most likely to freeze, and frostbite hits roosters most because their combs and wattles run larger.
That’s the black Cochin bantam from the first photo, out on its own this time.
Which One Fits Your Flock?
Here’s my call, based on what these sources say. It’s my read, not a rule.
- Eggs for the kitchen. Get the big Buff. It lays large eggs, 150 to 280 a year by Cackle’s estimate, and McMurray says it keeps laying right through cold weather.
- A small yard or a small coop. Get the bantam. It needs half the floor space, per Penn State, and it eats less feed.
- Hatching your own chicks. Either one works. Both sizes are listed as setters.
- Showing at the fair. Either one, in different classes. The big Buff shows in the English class, and the bantam shows with the single comb, clean-legged bantams.
If you’re still torn between breeds, not just sizes, try our Chicken Breed Finder. And if the big Buff is your pick, our Rhode Island Red vs Buff Orpington page sets it against another favorite.
The chick in those cupped hands could grow into anything, since its breed and size weren’t recorded. Whichever Buff you pick, though, it’ll show up as a chick about that small.
Sources
- Francine A. Bradley, UC Davis: Poultry Fact Sheet 18c, on poultry standards (PDF).
- Gail Damerow, Cackle Hatchery blog: What Is a Bantam Chicken? (February 15, 2019).
- John L. Skinner, University of Wisconsin: Bantams (North Central Regional Extension Publication 209, PDF).
- American Bantam Association: About.
- American Bantam Association: Active Breed Variety List, March 2021 (PDF).
- Livestock Conservancy: Orpington Chicken.
- University of Illinois Extension: History of Breeds.
- Cackle Hatchery: Buff Orpington Bantam.
- Cackle Hatchery: Buff Orpington.
- Cackle Hatchery: Buff Orpington, exhibition type.
- McMurray Hatchery: Buff Orpingtons.
- Meyer Hatchery: Buff Orpington.
- Jacquie Jacob and Tony Pescatore, University of Kentucky: How Much Will My Chickens Eat? (ASC-191, PDF).
- Penn State Extension: Poultry Cannibalism: Prevention and Treatment.
- Jacquie Jacob, University of Kentucky, on the Poultry Extension site: Frostbite in Chickens.
Sources checked October 28, 2026. Prices and stock change fast, so check the hatchery’s own page before you order. Every percentage and ounce conversion on this page is my math from the numbers above. We aren’t vets. If a bird looks sick, call a vet who sees poultry.
Related read: How to Raise Chickens for Eggs — Instant PDF download. Secure checkout by Stripe
