Lightly massage the bird's sternum, using the slightly spread thumb and index finger of one hand to do the stroking. A third technique, discovered buried in the files of The Old Farmer's Almanac, is the Chalk Line Method. Draw a straight chalk mark about a foot long. Hold the chicken with its beak on one end of the line, staring straight out at the chalk mark. Regardless of the method used, a sudden movement or loud noise will bring the chicken out of the hypnotic trance.
Wild pheasants are very nervous and high-strung, and usually very easy to hypnotize.
In her demonstrations, she is protective of pheasants, because after they come out of hypnosis, they are likely to hurt themselves unless they are carefully monitored. Noting that domestic birds are more difficult to hypnotize than wild ones, she suggests that one reason may be that wild birds are using a survival skill when they submit to hypnosis. White has reported the results of her experiments at several New Jersey science conferences and fairs. In one of her studies of 11 birds, the heart and respiration rates, when measured five minutes after hypnosis, were significantly lower than in the prehypnotic state. For example, in a Bantam White Cochin cock, the heart rate before hypnosis was 457 beats per minute and after hypnosis 372.