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How to Hypnotize a Chicken | The Old Farmer's Almanac

How to Hypnotize a Chicken: Two Easy Ways to Calm Birds

A relaxed chicken is a happy chicken; try chicken hypnosis!

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Chicken Hypnosis Works!

November 12, 2021
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Wondering how to hypnotize a chicken? Learn to calm a high-strung bird with the oscillating finger method or sternum stroke method.

Oscillating Finger Method

1) Place the chicken on its side with a wing under its body. Hold it down gently with one hand. Note: You will want to make sure its head is flat on the table.

2) Using a finger from your other free hand, move your finger back and forth in front of the bird’s beak. The key is to go from the tip of its beak (without actually touching the beak) to a point that is about four inches from the beak.

3) Keeping the finger in a parallel line to the beak, repeat the motion until the bird is out.

Sternum Stroke Method

1) Place the bird gently on its back. Note: You may have to use an item to keep the bird from rolling to its side.

2) Hold the bird down with one hand.

3) With your free hand, lightly massage the bird’s sternum with your thumb and index finger slightly spread out.

4) Repeat until the bird is out.

See more about chickens in our Raising Chickens 101 blog!

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Comments

Cathy (not verified)

1 month 2 weeks ago

You can also do this by placing the bird on the ground with it's beak also on the ground. Place your finger at, but not touching the tip of the beak and draw a straight line in the dirt away from the bird. This is how I have always put birds under.

Yes. You can also hypnotize a chicken by laying it on its side on the ground and drawing a line in the sand with your finger, right beside i its eye. The chicken will stare at the line, and lie quietly.

. (not verified)

4 years 2 months ago

I believe this to be a prey response similar to a possum playing dead. Birds have stiff lungs that are supplied air via air sacs, so it shouldn't restrict breathing much, if any. Still, I have noted open mouth breathing when birds are on their backs, so I tend to restrict use of their tendency to go limp like this to things like treating SLM or trimming toenails. Holding a bird by the legs also produces a similar trance like state where they can be hung for slaughter or (in the case of a flighty bird) moved easily. Be careful of the possibility of regurgitation and aspiration.
Sources: personal experience with my flock (~200 birds to date) plus research into the anatomy of chickens.

Melinda (not verified)

5 years 11 months ago

Aren't you cutting oxygen supply by rolling them on their backs!? That's where the lungs are located. So they are basically passing out.

It is more of a “freeze” reaction; it’s not suffocation. It’s a gentle way of inducing ‘tonic immobility’, a state of temporary paralysis that enables an animal to feign death when cornered by a predator.