First Place
Beth Kleinsasser won first place with the photo below of chickens on a Fall morning. As first place winner, Beth has won a $100 gift certificate. The chickens in the photo are Black Stars, Red Stars, and a Rhode Island Red.
Photo by Beth Kleinsasser
Second Place
Emily Green won second place with this photo of an India Blue Peacock and received as a prize a $50 gift certificate. The photo was taken with a Nikon D200, 210mm lens, f9.0 at 1/40th sec, ISO 400, shot in open shade.
Photo by Emily Green
Emily sent us this description:
Peter was an India Blue Peacock I had been given by a friend when he was about a year old. I kept him on our property for approximately 3 years before he started to become a nuisance to the neighbors (mating call at 3am and messing on their porch and in their garage) and we had to find him a new home. I still miss him dearly!
Peafowl are extremely inquisitive. We have 34 acres of property, but they always wander in the opposite direction – towards the neighbors! They love to sit on the porch and peer in through the windows to see what you are doing. Many people believe they can’t fly. They can! But only for short distances. They would perch high up in the pine trees at night, and we would frequently hear them running around on the roof. Peter became ill one time and after taking him to the vet, we had to tube feed him for several weeks and finally nursed him back to full health.
I no longer keep peafowl, due to the problems with neighbors. I do have 3 Pekin ducks, and 28 chickens, both standard and bantams of different breeds.
Third Place
Ken Hill won third place with his photo of a Turkey. His prize is a $25 gift certificate.
Photo by Ken Hill
All the turkeys had been getting on top of a pen, so Ken just had to wait until one flew down to capture the photo.
Other Photo Contests
To see information about our other poultry-related photo contests, visit the link below:
All three of the pictures are absolutely beautiful. I especially loved how beautiful the colors were in the Peacock photo. The first one would make a great wall picture, and the turkey in mid air, wow!
The photos are very enjoyable and I absolutely love the caption stories. I raised 4 turkeys this spring. They are so friendly and imprinted on me so they follow me wherever I go. Problem is they also can jump and fly over the pen so the height had to be raised to over 8 ft. I think Tony, Timmy, Tillie & Tina Turkey would also scamper on our rood & peek inside if given the chance. Poultry are amazing creatures!
Marianne in California
1St. place picture is beautiful. Reminds me of the ealrly mornings when we let our chickens out in Wi.
Wow…I absolutely love the peacock picture! The colors are so vivid – it looks like a beautiful painting.
Your photo contests are inspiring. All the photos are superlative. The first place winner makes me feel peaceful and restful. A real stress reliever.
I enjoy all the contests that you have had at Murray McMurray Hatchery. It is fun to see all the various fowl and how much their owners think of them by taking such wonderful phots of them.
Please continue with the contests…of all sorts!
My personal favorite was the third place photo. It’s a beautiful shot! Great job!
All your pictures are excellent! I really loved the second place winner! It reminds me how beautiful Mother nature combines colors. It’s an inspiration to my living room. It’s sad that he gave him away but everywhere that these birds live, they own it! I can understand!
As a digital artist and photographer, I really appreciate the turkey in flight. Ken Hill has combined several elements successfully to capture his image at proper exposure, correct focus and shutter speed as well as excellent depth of field. It may have been a lucky “grab shot” but I doubt it. Of course, he had nothing to do with the great posturing of his subject.
I love your photo contests and the incredible results! The turkey photo brought back memories of the first batch of turkeys I raised on my farm; they would perch on the highest part of the reach of my husbands logging truck. My morning wake up call was swearing, and then the swoop foop foop foop thud of the turkey’s flying off the reach! The turkey manure they left was a line down the centre of the Kenworth’s hood. It actually corroded the paint…..maybe one of the reasons I have an EX husband now! No sense of farm humor! You have to love Turkey’s!
All great pictures!! Personally, I think the 3rd place photo was the best as it looks like it was hard to take that shot and not have some part of it out of focus. But they’re all excellent photos!!
The 1st place is definitely a winner, but I would have had a hard time choosing between that and 3rd place. That turkey in flight is awesome!
The first place winner picture is exquisite. Fabulous shot.
I thought that the turkey in flight and, the chickens in the fog were perfect photos that showed the exllence of the birds.