It's funny that you're asking this because guess what I was doing about six hours ago during the early afternoon? Yup, shoveling snow out of the chicken runs so they'd go outside when I opened their popholes. My chickens hate walking in snow that's more than an INCH deep, let alone five inches. But they'll walk on it if it's stamped down hard or shovelled down to the gravel. Plus which I feed them scratch grain in their runs, so there's that to consider too.
Shovelling right down to the gravel also lets the sun get at any remaining patches and melt it right away--it melted quite a bit today, too! Then the chickens have actual bare ground to poke around on which makes them even happier. The only other option they like right now, given that most everything is temporarily snow-covered, is if I carry them to the front deck which I likewise shovelled down to the bare wood. There, they can run around on the decking, fly up on the railings, poke around in the mudroom--I leave the door to it open on such days. I tossed some of the bachelor roosters out on the deck today at the same time I opened the popholes for the flocks, just so they too could get some fresh air and sunshine while it was briefly warm enough for them to be outside. Judging from the whole lotta crowing and wing-flapping and friendly posturing going on, they enjoyed themselves!
