First snow day

[630004]

 

[moisture]

Those are some great pictures, wish mine would come out in the snow so I could get some pics of them. How'd you get the background behind the chickens to be white too?

 

[Stablecoop]

Silly question… we keep our coop mostly closed in winter, we worry about drafts. Can chickens actually go outside and play around in the snow without getting too cold? Our coop is large (310 sq feet for 15 hens), and they have enrichment but I do wonder if they would enjoy being outside more in the winter. GREAT PICS!!

 

[Pierre duck drake]

Wow! Great pictures! How did you get the background so white?

 

[630004]

Those are some great pictures, wish mine would come out in the snow so I could get some pics of them. How'd you get the background behind the chickens to be white too?

Just do some positive exposure compensation. I was lucky in that it was pretty overcast as well so lots of fairly even light.

Slightly longer version.
I used spot metering with a +2 exposure compensation on a Nikon D4s with 70-200. Shutter speed was set to 400th of a second and aperture to f/2.8. ISO was set to auto I was about 15-20 feet from the chicken.

Images were imported into Capture One and snow exposure was matched using the exposure balance tool. Minor crop and a little bit of sharpening and that was it.

I’m a bit of a slacker when it comes tomm no pictures so am quite happy to have the technology do the heavy lifting for me. All in probably took about 10 minutes to choose the pictures I wanted, do the cropping and apply the edi.

 

[630004]

Silly question… we keep our coop mostly closed in winter, we worry about drafts. Can chickens actually go outside and play around in the snow without getting too cold? Our coop is large (310 sq feet for 15 hens), and they have enrichment but I do wonder if they would enjoy being outside more in the winter. GREAT PICS!!

Thank you!
Our are shameless in that they will pretty much do anything for a treat (in this case some squash). They went right back in as soon as they had eaten it.

Our coop is basically a shed with an automatic door on it. They can go in and out as they please in the day. We have an area with some electric chicken wire around it.

 

[N F C]

Nice photos!

 

[AntiqueB]

Silly question… we keep our coop mostly closed in winter, we worry about drafts. Can chickens actually go outside and play around in the snow without getting too cold? Our coop is large (310 sq feet for 15 hens), and they have enrichment but I do wonder if they would enjoy being outside more in the winter. GREAT PICS!!

They can be in snow, as long as they have access to a shelter so they can get out of it when they want.

However, last winter, it took my girls something like 3 rounds of snow before they even consented to think about walking on it. They spent days in a tiny run because they wouldn't walk on parts that I shoveled. It was like watching a game of "the floor is lava." If they wanted something, they'd fly to the nearest bare patch. They still don't exactly like it, but they at least walk on it.

We did get a light dusting the other day, and my Speckled Sussex dove right in (it was her first snow), so it also depends on the bird.

 

[PippinTheChicken]

You should enter those pictures for the 2023 calendar next year

 

[Sally PB]

All in probably took about 10 minutes to choose the pictures I wanted, do the cropping and apply the edi.

Nice job.