I have never heard of a cornemuse du midi - you probably mean cornemuse du centre (central French bagpipe).
Technically, cornemuse du centre and Schäferpfeife are more or less identical, only design and setup are different - Schäferpfeife has its two drones pointing forwards, while cornemuse has the bass drone over the shoulder and the tenor parallel to the chanter, in a common stock.
Most common pitch for both is G (in french called "16 pouces", which refers to the length of the chanter), the chanter giving a range of an octave plus one tone below and three overblown tones, so the overall range is from f to c'. Most semitones can be achieved by crossfingering.
Matthias Branschke and Torsten Tetz are among the best makers for Schäferpfeifen, they both learned from Andreas Rogge. Another name worth mentioning would be Bodo Schulz.
There are a good few makers in Holland and Belgium, Jan Soete, Frans Hattink and Paul Beekhuizen come into my mind, and of course Rémy Dubois, whose workshop is being continued by Olle Geris.
Among the French makers, Bernard Blanc, Sege Durin, Arnaud Guenzi are probably the most well-known ones. Last but by no means least, Jonathan Swayne and Alban Faust both make excellent instruments of that type.
If you choose the traditional mouth blown version or use the bellows-blown one is up to your own preference - I can't see any advantage or draw-back in either, no matter if you prefer plastic or cane reeds.
The cheaper student models offered by both Matthias and Torsten are fully playable instruments, the lower price results from simpler design and the omitment of the second drone, which also forgoes the necessity of a more complicated drone stock. No chanter keys (which are not traditional, anyway) means, F# and G# in the low octave are not playable - all other semitones are there, including high F# and G#.
As for maintenance - if you don't touch your reed, you won't break it...

my own Schäferpfeife is the least maintenance intensive bagpipe of all I have.
For used instruments, you might have a look here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/sackpfeifenboerse/ or here:
http://sackpfeifenclub.de/As for ælfléoð's comments - Schäferpfeifen generally do not have recorder fingering, they have half-closed fingering, same as French cornemuse. The second thumb hole is for the minor third.
Dorian scale is the main scale of the Marktsack, not Schäferpfeife, and single thumb hole bagpipes can achieve a mixolydian scale as well - in fact, mixolydian seems to be the most widespread bagpipe scale of all. Hümmelchen is a totally different bagpipe altogether and is of no help as a starter instrument for Schäferpfeife.
The tuning pins of the Highland pipes are also wooden, metal sleeves are purely decorative, and like on any other bagpipe, there is a thread packing on the pin where it goes into the slide. If you have to jerkily twist the drone in tune, the threading is too tight, nothing else.