Pros: Friendly and Sweet. Good layers - big eggs. Pretty color.
Cons: The local fox finds them to be especially tasty.
My Australops have the sweetest personality, are very calm and docile, and are friendly and easy to pick up. I have 1 and 2 year olds and they remain among my favorites. Because they're so docile, they tend to be on the low end of the pecking order, but I have a couple who have a spot of the top roost.
I've never had one try to peck me, even when I had to remove Ms. Broody from her nest several times a day last summer. After her evictions, she was quite perturbed and would peck at other hens who got in her way, but she never pecked me. She was very broody most of the summer and I brought her inside in a dog crate several times because we had a brutally hot summer and I was afraid she'd die from heat exhaustion or dehydration. It would take about 3 days to break her broodiness. This year I'd like to get some eggs for her.
They lay large eggs. I have trouble fitting some of them in the egg cartons! Some of them have very pretty speckles.
They have gorgeous color in the sunlight, with blue and green highlights.
They seem to be very hardy. I had a young one with sour crop who eventually died, despite a lot of intensive care. I'm guessing she had some sort of abnormality because I'd nurse her back to health and she would get sour crop as soon as she was back on a normal diet. However, all the others have done very well, despite last summer's 100+ degree heat and slap-you-in-the-face humidity. The don't seem to be bothered by cold into the teens.
The only drawback, in my situation, is that's they're slower than the other hens and are the prime target for fox. One lucky girl managed to get away with a bare butt, but two others were taken. I currently have them inside an electric fence, but NONE of my chickens have any problem walking through my seven-strand fence.
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