I'd love them and they are beautiful, but in the end I had half my flock lost to hawks when I first started, all the SLW none of the GLW- the Hawks here can pick up on a silver or white feather from a great distance. I'd hate to lose birds just because they are soo pretty.
But maybe they are...
An eye isn't going to deter the hawks, they fly faster then I run, assuming the flock is in one place and not subdivided...
And keeping them in a pen defeats what I need...
Hawks hunt by sight mostly and those are what I'm worried about, (Red tail, red shoulder, coopers- among others) most...
Isn't mixed or strange colors a detriment to free range birds? We have hawks- or are they really that much smarter then chickens, doves and ducks...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/gallery/album/view/id/6177963/user_id/44847
However I just got a 'free' dog...