Welcome back to the blog! All of these posts have been about chickens, so I decided that it is time to break the tradition and instead discuss my experience with a different bird. With that being said, let’s just jump right on into it.

In my family’s garage, we have a shelf with tools, bottles, and other such objects. One day, as I reached for gloves, I noticed a spherically-shaped amalgamation of twigs with a hole at the front. Inside, two black eyes stared straight into my soul. Talk about a jumpscare. I must have activated the “thing’s” fight-or-flight response as well, because it rocketed straight toward my face but thankfully was only aiming to escape rather than assault. I peered closer to the nest and saw tan-colored eggs, but the bird started aggressively calling for backup, so I decided to retreat before being confronted by the Avian Avengers or whatever. I wondered, “how did the bird enter?” After a thorough examination, we found a hole in the corner of the garage door – barely large enough for a small bird to squeeze through freely.

It only took a couple of weeks for the eggs to hatch! One flock, or batch, tends to have four or five eggs, and from observations it seemed that the success rate, at least for hatching, was significantly high. Sometimes there may also be an extra egg thrown in there from other brood parasites, but that’s a different topic of discussion for another time. Just as a PSA, the babies are very ugly-cute, but trying to handle them may not be the best decision. Not only are the babies sensitive, but it will also frighten the parents if caught red-handed, and though I am not positive, it may also cause the parents to either reject certain children or abandon the nest entirely in which case – game over.

I am almost positive that this type of bird was a wren of sorts – perhaps resembling the one displayed on the right. I have also always been interested in observing wildlife; eventually, we set a remote motion-sensing camera up, but it was not appreciated in the slightest. After a few days, we found seemingly random pieces of poo all over our front porch and garage floor. The recordings showed that after being fed, the hungry child would instinctively do a 180. You may know where this is going, but the parent bird would gently take the fecal waste from the baby as it was being ejected and deposit it somewhere in our garage to annoy us – I kid you not, this is not a joke. Some people may think that is disgusting, but I honestly thought it was intriguing. For those wondering, yes, I would absolutely include the footage in this post (for scientific purposes of course and nothing else), but I would have to dig deeper in the file archives for them. Those things – they made us cover our camera with newspaper out of sheer fear! They did not even pay rent! Regardless, this was a reminder that the behavior of seemingly simpler organisms can actually be quite interesting and perhaps somewhat rewarding to observe at times. If only I had been able to record footage of what happened outside of the garage!

As always, thanks for reading, take care, and stay tuned for the next post!

Welcome back! After an apparent death at the hands of “the end of the fall semester”, this blog has been retrieved from the depths of my bookmarks, dusted off (figuratively), and subsequently resurrected. Rejoice, for the series lives on, returning for the new year and rescued from eternal slumber – at least for now!

Anyways, I am sure that many people can relate when I say that I randomly remember random memories. One such memory is of my high school classmate being so-called hypnotized at a school event by an entertainer. That is what helped to create the idea of this post. Most of the general population is aware of the existence of hypnosis and may consider it to be a cheap attempt at mind control. Less know about its specific mechanisms and (potential) psychologically therapeutic effects, and even less have heard anything about “chicken hypnosis”.

So how does chicken hypnosis work? As for one method to perform this “ritual”, humanely restrain the chicken on the ground, firmly draw a foot-long straight line (or motion it with a single finger) extending away from the front of the chicken’s beak, and almost as if admitting defeat, the avian will cease its struggling, lie down, and stay there – completely still – for an extended period of time. Eventually, the chicken will “wake” itself up without the need for much help or any revival/resuscitation. It is crazy how it quits and suddenly gives up – almost like magic, right?

Honestly, it seemed fake and silly to me at first until I saw it. Believe it or not, chicken hypnosis even has its own Wikipedia page with additional information (including other “techniques”), so feel free to take a look at it in your spare time. Now, it definitely looks real to me but, I am still oddly intrigued as to how it actually works at all to begin with. It is said that the chicken behaves this way and plays dead, similarly to a possum, as an instinctual defense mechanism known as tonic immobility. Furthermore, with proper care and handling, hypnosis can also be used to conveniently examine certain areas of the chicken’s body without it throwing a problematic fit as a chaotic freak. I have never tried hypnotizing any of my chickens, and I unfortunately no longer have the opportunity to either, so I do not have any personal evidence – only YouTube videos. I may have accidentally done something similar to a sleepy or shocked chicken. If I could try it on problematic chicks, I would (respectfully). Perhaps I could train or condition one to bow down to me as its master, who knows.

Thanks for reading this blog post! Is chicken hypnosis real, or are the chickens just paid actors? Is it a forbidden art? Was this post clickbait (hint: no)? Feel free to share your thoughts down in the comments below, and look forward to the next entry.