How are your Ayam Cemani's doing? I didn't realize they are cold hearty chickens. My husband has been reading about them because he wants to add a roo and a hen to our flock. Where are you getting them? I swear he told me they were like $1500!!
Prices are whatever the market will bear. AC's have been in this country quite a while before Greenfire imported them and made a big deal about pricing them at $5000 per pair. As it turns out, the birds they imported were inferior in blackness (what all AC's are judged by) to some strains already here. GF did those breeders a solid by giving the breed so much notoriety. People wanted them just to have the world's most expensive chicken (why do people buy Ferraris?).
After getting them into the hands of good breeders, the prices for "ordinary" AC's like the Greenfire lines have dropped to well under $50 a chick, but the very blackest strains can still fetch $200 or more.
I don't have AC's, but a good friend has (what he claims are) the very best in the country. They have a waiting list for their $200 chicks. They also have a lesser grade (but still mostly black) pen that sells for less.
They have large single combs, like leghorns and legbars, making them more prone to frostbite than birds with pea or rose combs, like Ameraucanas and Wyandottes, but other than that, I don't see them as being less cold hardy.