How to Hypnotize a Chicken

A few years ago my husband and I thought it would be fun to buy a few chickens to keep in our Suburban backyard. The children would find them entertaining and we might even get a few eggs. My husband's family had chickens in their backyard when he was growing up but I had never owned anything more than a cat.

So my husband built a nice chicken coop in our backyard. Then we packed up the kids and drove to the nearest feed store. The nearest feed store is a couple of towns over because we do not live in the country. The children could hardly contain their exitement. "Are we really going to have real chickens in our back yard?" "Do we really get to keep them?"

So we arrive at Del's Feed Supply store and they have these giant aluminum tubs full of a variety of different baby chicks. Some were only a couple of days old and no bigger than a golf ball and others were a little larger. A very helpful woman that works at the feed store comes over and sensing I am a green horn asks me if I would like to buy some chicks. So I told her I would, but I have no idea what I am doing. No problem she says and we start loading up on all the appropriate gear that one needs to raise some little baby chicks. Giant rubber tub, heat lamp, water dish, feed dish ecetera. We chose six different types of baby chicks. I would have been happy to start off with fewer but apparently chickens are social creatures and just are not happy in small groups. The children are just so exited and I think the women who works at the feed store thought that we were a pretty funny family with the children being so exited and me being so unknowledgable.

So just before we checked out at the cash register she asks us if we want to see a neat trick? Of course we do! To us this women is like the chicken guru. She knows everything that there is to know about chicken farming and we are ready to learn. So she picks up one of the larger chickens and says "I am going to show you how to hypnotize this chicken." The children say no way, this is just too amazing to be true. She flips the chicken over and pets it's chest and it slowly falls asleep in her hands. Then she places it gently on the ground and draws a line in front of it. The chicken is hypnotized and the children and I are amazed!

1. Pick up a chicken and flip it on it's back.

2. Gently pet the chicken's chest. This will make the chicken very drowsy.

3. Then Carefully flip the chicken back over and place it on the ground.

4. With a stick beginning on the ground closest to the chicken's beak, steadily draw a straight line in the dirt in front of the chicken.

5. Now your chicken should be hypnotized for several minutes.

6. To bring the chicken out of the trance either make a loud noise or just wait a few minutes and they will wake up all on their own.

7. The chicken will not be harmed from being hypnotized.