Chicken on the Loose

Extra! Extra! Read all about it here! One little chicken attempting to make a getaway!

You can see he has spotted the opening:

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Edging a little closer to check it out:

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Making his getaway:

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The truth is though, there is no such thing as an extra, unwanted chicken, so he was returned to his home.

I took this series of shots in relatively quick succession, so there was no time to adjust the settings.  I have decided not to do any post editing because I think the imperfections help to tell the tale of this attempted hasty escape. Do the imperfections bother you? or do you sometimes prefer a photo to be displayed as shot? Your comments and thoughts on the matter are welcome below!

These photos were taken as part of a life cycle unit in a second grade class that I was documenting this Spring as is my entry for this week’s photo challenge at WordPress.

Cheers!

Everyone, including the chickens, are on the move

It’s been a busy few weeks in my household, and I’ll end this post with a few thoughts on where this blog is headed.  Before I get to that though, I thought that this week’s photo challenge, on the move, was the perfect time to share a few chicken photos.  Those of you who read my last post know that I am photographing a life cycle unit that is being taught in a 2nd grade classroom.

These photos show a bit of what the set-up looks like:

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Over the weekend the eggs were checked one last time and then went on lockdown.  That means that the incubator will not be opened for several days while the chickens are hatching. One of the things that happens while preparing for lockdown is that we can look at the inside of the egg using a process called candling, basically to check on the health of the egg.  Here is a healthy egg:

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This one is blank, meaning no chicken in here:

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The candling photos were taken on Saturday, just before lockdown, by Monday the first three chickens had hatched.  This photo is of an egg that is getting ready to hatch, there is a small break in the shell, so soon there should be a chicken:

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The shell that is completely discarded belongs to the yellow colored chicken in this photo:

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The darker colored chicken is a bantam chicken.  The children named that chicken Trouble because it was messing around a bit with his incubator mates.

The photos I chose for this post are all unedited, as for the purpose of this post, I was just telling a story and not focused as much on the art of the actual photo.  When I get to the editing process, I will be doing some cropping and sharpening.  The photos taken through the incubator window are a bit tricky due to reflections.

As I alluded to in the title of the post, the chickens are not the only ones on the move. I have not been posting as frequently in the past few weeks because I started a new job and finished a school semester at the same time. So, this is my acknowledgement that I am “behind” on my blog.  This means that I may have a comment of yours to approve or perhaps you have visited here lately and I have not returned the visit.  As I am writing this, I can see that I have 777 visits to make. Thats a lot for me, but having a cup of tea and visiting blogs is actually my favorite way to start the day. I am hoping to get caught back up in the next week or so.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I have been taking a Photoshop class this past year.  I am happy to say that I turned in my final project and took an exam yesterday. My next class is on Adobe Illustrator, so I am not certain how much of that class will turn up on this blog.  I am grateful to all of you who have offered me support and encouragement over this past year.  I’m very much looking forward to getting caught up and then continuing with this blog over the summer.

Questions or comments about the chickens or about this blog in general? feel free to leave them below!

Cheers!

 

Chickens Move On

This will be my last post about chickens for the season.  The chickens are ready to move to the various farms and homes that are waiting for them.  Here is one group ready to go:

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Before they left, I took a few outside to stretch their legs and get some photos:

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These chickens were all part of a life cycles unit for a second grade class.  If you missed my other posts, or just would like to take a second look they are here: Still in the Egg, In the Incubator, and Small Chickens.

The challenge for all these chicken photos was dealing with the light.  Under the warming lights, it was bright and hard to get detail.  In the incubator, it was on the dark side, but the incubator needed to be left alone, so I worked with what I had.  Taking the chickens outside was bright, but the uneven light some times created a problem.  Taking photos of something that is moving is always tough.  In this case I was trying to stop the action and get as much detail as possible, so I always tried to get the shutter speed as fast as possible. I use my 50mm lens for shooting these chickens.  I can get close and the detail that a prime lens offers is great in this situation.

I hope you enjoyed following the growth and development of these chickens.  I had a great time taking photos, and the kids in the classroom learn so much!  I always appreciate comments, so feel free to leave them below.

Cheers!

Some Very Small Chickens

The last time I posted about the chickens they were hatching and still in the incubator.  In these first two pictures it is two days later and they are out of the incubator but still spending most of their day under warming lamps.  This is what it looks like when the gang is all together:

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They also spend short amounts of time out of the cage:

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You can see that they are going to have to grow into their feet a bit.  They do grow fast.  Here are a few shots from the next day:

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And two more from the day after that:

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The chickens in this post are between 3 and 5 days old.  They are currently living in a second grade classroom where they are being observed as part of a life cycle unit.  If you would like to see what they looked like while they were developing, click here to see my post.  While they are is the classroom the children have been filling out chicken journals, keeping track of the chickens since they were eggs.  In a few days the chickens will be moving on to various local farms.  I will post again before they are moved just so you can see how fast they grow.

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Light

I didn’t travel too far this week’s theme, light, I just went to a local elementary school.  A friend of mine teaches there and they are doing a life cycles unit, which includes monitoring some chickens as they go from eggs to chicks.  At day seven I went in to take some pictures of candling.  Here is one of those from the series I took:

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If you look at the lightest part of the image, you can see the head of the developing chicken.  How cool is that?

The challenge to getting this image is, as you can see, that I was  shooting in the dark.  I used my tripod and asked my friend to stand very still.  You will notice that the ISO is really high here.  I could have tried a lower f-stop to let in more light, but I really did want to preserve a good amount of depth in the photo, so that is why it is set to f/6.3.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Renewal

Renewal is the theme for the weekly photo challenge at WordPress.  Here is what I came up with:

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I took this last spring when my youngest child was doing a life cycles unit that included raising some chickens.  This photo is one of the chickens surveying the school grounds.

Cheers!

 

Chickens get to the road, decide to cross

This will be my last chicken post for this year. The life cycle unit is over and the chickens who have successfully hatched have moved on. My youngest will miss seeing them in school everyday, but these chickens have been placed in various flocks in the neighborhood and on farms.  Here are some parting shots:

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Thanks chicks, for making the end of the school year most eggs-cellent!

Cheers

Cute as a Chick(en)

Everyone, all together now, awww….

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These little folks are part of my youngest’s life cycle unit in school.  Which is a unit that has taken over our world and led to dinner conversations like this:

youngest: well, it came out of the egg but was bleeding because it’s intestines weren’t fully inside.  Mrs. C. separated it from the other chicks who had started pecking at it.  It died though, that was sad.

others: oh…

It’s the life cycle that’s for sure, not so sure it makes for great dinner conversation though.

This morning, sigh, here are the results of my tripod project:

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It’s a tiny image because I cropped almost all of it out.  Note to self: check the focus of the frame before walking away!  By the time I figured out that I had a problem, I had lost the light.  Or more specifically, had gained the light,  A LOT of light:

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15 minutes between the two shots.  For tomorrow, pay more attention to focusing the frame.

Cheers!