How (not) to hypnotise a chicken

You Tube lied to me. It told me that hypnotising a chicken would be easy and I can personally testify that it is not. I strongly suspect that all chickens used in You Tube demonstrations are already in a pre-hypnotised state.  I thought it might be fun to give it a whirl, especially since one technique was to tuck the chook’s head under its wing and whirl it about three times.  I would imagine that my ability to mesmerize one of my hens might come in very handy some day. Perhaps I could even get it to talk like a human, which would be the poultry equivalent of a human clucking like a chicken.

Step one: Catch the chicken. Hang on, isn’t the whole point of the exercise to put the thing into a trance so that you can do anything with it? Like...oh I don’t know...CATCH it?  I have six hens: Pepsi and Cola are black frizzles with scatty dispositions so I decided to start with a more docile bird. Katherine is stupid enough to squat and freeze if anything threatens to invade her personal space. That’s some defence mechanism you have there Katherine.

“What do you think you’re doing?” My Beloved seemed confused.

“Well, OBVIOUSLY I’m hypnotising a chicken.” I replied “Just think how much easier it would be to clip her wings”

“But you never clip their wings.”

“Yeah, but if I hypnotise them, I could if I wanted to.”

Beloved is used to my ways so he just shrugged and wandered off to prune a plum tree.

It didn’t go well with Katherine. She blustered and flapped and took off. So I tried on one of the Andrews Sisters (three hens that all look the same so they’re all called “Miss Andrews”). She was appalled. This was worse than when I tried to paint her toenails pink (so that I could tell her apart from her sisters).

I’ve decided that my hens must be Christian Chickens who have decided that it’s a better option to “love the Lord your God with all your mind...” than to hand their little brains over to a chicken-brained bird with tin foil in her hair.  I was putting blonde highlights in at the time.

So if it’s possible for a chicken to be a Christian, can a Christian be a chicken?  I would imagine that this would be someone who is reluctant to talk about God or unwilling to do what He asks them to do.  Am I a chicken Christian? I hope not, but I think sometimes we all are.  Some perfectly respectable Biblical heroes had their moments of being yellow-bellied. Jonah went into hiding when he was asked to give Ninevah a stern telling off and our favourite fisherman, Peter, went into complete denial when he was asked if he was one of Jesus’ crew. Co-incidentally that story involves a crowing rooster - I’ll bet that was a Christian chicken that couldn’t be hypnotised either.

If being brave means doing things you’re scared of doing, I think it’s okay to be a chicken Christian. Thankfully, God’s Instruction Book is jam-packed with reasons why we shouldn’t be chicken. I think He gives us this stuff to “egg us on” (sorry about that) because He really does like each one of us:

Fear not, for I am with you


I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me


Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.


The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

And that’s just a few of God’s wonderful promises.

I think I’m okay with being a plucky chicken Christian (get it? “Plucky”? Clever huh?) . That way I know it’s the Lord who works it out through me. Bock...bock...bock...