So, I have a few breeds.
4 RIR (hens)
2 white (light?) Brahmas (I think one is a rooster, but I'm not 100% but his comb appears a little bigger and redder)
1 black minorca (I think that's what it is LOL)
and 5 Jersey Giant crosses (I KNOW one is mixed with americana, but I am not sure about the others) (2 are roosters)
I have 2 questions.
I may possibly have 3 roosters. They all live together. None have spurs yet, so I am not too worried, but can they live in peace together?
Totally possible. It depends on their individual characters, and on you. If you remove the victims and keep the bullies, for example, you're perpetuating a prison-inmate-style flock dynamic where you only keep the worst of the worst and they've all got to be a certain level of vicious to survive. If you remove bullies, you're promoting a civilized social dynamic instead.
Too many people remove the victims of the imbalanced and ultra-violent animals because they have an incorrect idea of what a fertile male is, or what any male is, and how he acts in any given situation. 'Rampaging psychotic brute' is one common notion of what a 'real' male acts like. In reality, roosters are very social family-oriented birds who have the same amount of communicative behaviors and instincts as hens do, and have mechanisms for defusing fights, de-escalating and avoiding conflict, and the same instincts to stay with their family, look after one another, and raise offspring together.
We have bred many positive social behaviors out of some family lines of some breeds but they can be bred back in, but it helps to remove dangerous individuals rather than try to correct them as they can cost you better individuals before you can reform them or their family line.
In my experience whether males treat hens well or get along with other males has absolutely nothing to do with the number of hens, despite common literature advising keeping a certain number to prevent conflict. You'll see many threads on this site where no amount of hens is making the difference with nasty roosters. One hen each is all they really need. A male who likes to kill other males will kill them even if he's got 100 hens to himself.
In my flock I have all hens and all roosters and babies etc all together, and the roosters have full spurs, unblunted, and don't hurt one another. There have been a few accidental spur wounds on the hens, but that's it, over years of keeping the flock integrated this way. When the boys decide to contest hierarchy they will boot one another a few times and that's it, no spurring or wounding, no deaths, no harm done.
A male who likes to brutalize hens while mating will 'overmate' hens even if he's got 100, but a male who treats hens well will never 'overmate' even 1 hen, because he's not nasty. 'Overmating' is actually the results of not the mating itself, but the rooster being cruel to the hen and savaging her while mating. There is no need to remove feathers or harm her, that for most roosters is a choice. When mating and fighting instincts are mixed, a male is better culled than kept.
A rooster can mate with a hen the same amount of times as a rooster who's 'overmating' without harming her.... It all depends on what he does to her, it has nothing to do with the amount of mating occurring. You expect clumsiness when they first learn to mate, not that all of them are clumsy either, but if they don't grow out of it within a few months, you've got nasty males. By their first birthday, if they're not gentle, they're not likely to end up that way.
Living with nasty males leads to females being male-averse and once that pattern is established your hens will be in the habit of running from roosters, and the roosters will be in the habit of chasing and coercing them, and general distress and damage is the continual state of affairs.
Some hens don't like roosters, no matter how nice they are to the hens, but you've got a variety and some of your hens at least should like roosters if they're not abused. A hen who likes roosters and who lives with gentle roosters will invite them to mate, not run away and complain all the time; this also depends on the roosters getting smart enough to know not all hens want to mate all the time, and they should leave well enough alone when the hen isn't interested. I select for this instinct in mine so hens with babies, injuries, or illness can remain among the main flock without being harassed. I also cull out bullies so all birds can live in peace. Because these traits are strongly heritable, once you've thoroughly culled them out once, the peace becomes self-propagating and breeds on. I culled against bullies initially, before breeding my first clutches, and haven't had to repeat that since, on even a small fraction of the scale. You just get less and less bullies with each generation. Of course when you bring in new birds regularly you still have to cull some traits out but that's it. They learn by watching, a lot, and will try to fit in with whatever the social dynamic is.
Also, I got the giants because they are supposed to be so nice and gentle. But they aren't as nice as I thought they were going to be. Not mean, but not friendly. My baby reds are much sweeter. Does anyone have any experience with their temperament? Is this something I could breed back into them?
You should never believe the breed's reviews completely as they only apply if the person breeding the family strain you've gotten adhered to those rules or standards and culled out any birds that didn't meet them. Many people effectively ruin the work of those who came before them by simply not culling out non-standard birds. Particularly people who believe it's natural for males to be hyper-aggressive, they ruin great breeders' efforts rapidly, in the space of a handful of generations. What you cull out and what you keep is how you shape your flock, in conjunction with their environment and how you interact with them and allow them to interact with one another.
You can breed the friendliness back into them, but it may take a few generations, between 5 and 7 on average for most behavioral traits, but it can happen much quicker if they're interested and willing.
Some birds, however, actively dislike humans, even if they never show aggression to humans... They are very human-averse and it's best to cull them as it's a strong trait to work against.
If any of your birds, despite you never setting a foot wrong, continue to try to lead the flock away from you, or make any of the 'be cautious/predator alert' alarm noises when you're around, get rid of them unless you want more trouble. You can imagine how difficult your job can become when you have a rooster teaching all hens to avoid you, and a hen teaching her babies to avoid you.
I would spend time earning their trust and hand-feeding them, as I've not found any truth in the belief that handling or hand-feeding roosters etc makes them dangerous, and if any of them 'refuse to come to the table' I'd give them a good few chances then call it quits on them.
If you like an animal that's showing bad traits, you can rehome rather than kill, or of course conduct your own experiment on breeding out bad traits. Culling doesn't have to mean death. But if you have a bird showing aggression to humans, it's safer to kill, because roosters in particular can and do cause serious amounts of damage, permanently in many cases, to adult humans, never mind toddlers etc who can be killed.
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.
Hope this helps. Best wishes with your flock. For their sake as well as yours I highly recommend you have a zero-tolerance stance towards bullies, rather than trying to work around them or manage their nastiness or change them, but of course I wish you all the best whatever your decision there.
