Chickens they are useful animals that provide you with daily nutrition, such as an egg or the meat. Keeping chickens is something many people enjoy doing. It is fun and practical, but now what if you have a fear of chickens? Do you then regret not being able to keep chickens? Do you find it difficult to visit people who do have chickens? Is the petting zoo a disaster to visit?
To overcome fear of chickens, in this blog I discuss fear of chickens and what you can do about it.
We are all living much more consciously than a few years ago. People want more organic and a tomato plant can already be grown on a balcony. No wonder there are also more and more people who want to keep chickens.
As a result, you see chickens everywhere. Sometimes in someone's backyard and sometimes they just sit beside the road (or bike path) in the roadside snatching worms (chickens eat everything)(1). This can even cause you to cycle a detour to avoid going past those chickens. Fear of chickens can therefore be a problem.
So it is especially important to prevent fear of chickens and if you already suffer from it, it is important to reduce fear of chickens. The official name of fear of chickens is alektorophobia(2).
Fear of chickens in children
Children experience something new every day and therefore have to overcome their fears every day. If you take your child to the petting zoo, your child will get all kinds of new impressions and may develop a fear of chickens.
Some chickens do come up to your toddler's waist!
Then again, if there is a rooster who protects his chickens or a chicken is very eager to eat the food in your child's hand, a chicken can seem very intimidating to children. The beak and clawed legs of chickens are much larger for a child than for an adult. In addition, chickens can make themselves very large with their wings.
The best way to help your child is to first show them how to feed a chicken themselves, by scattering the corn on the ground, for example.
Workpiece chickens
If your child is older, but still afraid of chickens, gaining more knowledge about the chicken can cause the fear to diminish. With most fears, wrong beliefs due to wrong knowledge are the cause of the fear.
Doing a paper on chickens can help your child learn about the chicken and find out that incorrect beliefs caused the fear.
Fear of chickens in adults
Many adults also still suffer from fear of chickens. This can have many causes, such as a traumatic experience with chickens as a child. Dreams and beliefs about birds can also cause you to still suffer from fear of chickens even as an adult.
Overcoming fear of chickens
Overcoming fear of chickens can have all kinds of motivations. Perhaps you want to be more self-sufficient and chicken is the way for you to get vitamin B12. That's only found in animal products, and an egg is easier to make self-sufficient than milk from a cow.
Or maybe now is the time to take your child to the petting zoo by yourself and this is a fear you don't want to pass on.
Can chickens fly?
Most chickens don't fly or, at most, only a few feet. The idea that chickens can fly past above you and then peck your eyes out of your head is a belief that is false and not helpful if you are afraid of chickens.
As mentioned, wrong beliefs can cause you to have unnecessary fear of chickens. It is therefore important to find out what beliefs you have about chickens that are wrong.
Is it the fear of being attacked or is it a fear just a little different?
Bird flu in chickens
For example, your anxiety may also stem from the news of bird flu in chickens. Bird flu is a strain of influenza that is transmissible to humans, but that chance is extremely small. If you fear chickens because you are afraid of being infected with the flu virus, it is important to realize the following things.
- All farms with chickens are checked for bird flu.
- When bird flu is detected, people are kept away from the area.
- When bird flu is detected, chickens are culled so they do not pose a danger.
- The government provides lots of information that hobbyists can use to prevent bird flu.
- Contagion to humans is very unlikely.
Actually, then, there is nothing to be afraid of. The culling of chickens is mainly to protect other farms with chickens so that they are not economically harmed by the flu virus.
So to overcome the fear of chickens, it is important to know the facts of chickens. This can already reduce the fear.
Cackling chickens sounds
Unfortunately, fear is not always rational, and a confrontation with chickens can leave you quite upset. Even if you already know the facts. Some people only need to hear the sound of a chicken to panic.
Reducing anxiety can be done in multiple ways, such as by changing beliefs, but also by learning about how anxiety affects your body.
A hypnotherapist can help you better control anxiety. This can be done, for example, by applying techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
Pictures of chickens
One such technique is to gradually confront yourself more and more with your fear of chickens(3). This can be done in thought alone at first. A hypnotherapist can help you well with this. Initially, you then make a list of things about chickens that you find scary, from least scary to most scary.
During a hypnotherapy session, guided visualization allows you to face your anxiety more and more. You notice with anxiety that this can cause tension in your muscles, speeding up your heart rate, nausea and also dizziness. By confronting your anxiety, you learn to recognize these physical characteristics of anxiety.
In the process, hypnosis helps you stay relaxed, reducing the aggravation of anxiety due to your physical characteristics.
You will also learn relaxation techniques so you can better suppress anxiety during a confrontation with it. For example, one relaxation technique is to remain physically calm and breathe deeply through your nose and through your abdomen. You can also be aware of the soles of your feet when doing this.
This technique from mindfulness prevents your imagination from running away with you and playing out all kinds of scenarios for you, making you even more afraid of chickens.
If visualization of the fear goes well, you can slowly confront your fear more and more in real life. This can be done, for example, first with pictures of chickens, then videos, a fake chicken, a chicken in a cage and so on.
Someone even got over his fear of chickens by playing a video game with chickens. He was startled at first by the chickens running across the screen, but by telling himself that the chickens were not real he was able to cope better and better.
The game got rid of his fear of chickens within 1 week.
Then you can visit someone with chickens and move a little closer to them with each visit.
Tending Chickens
If you get over your fear of chickens, you can start taking care of chickens for eggs. Then you also understand that they don't like it when you take away their egg, their baby, and therefore you better put on some sturdy gloves.
By tending your own chickens, you are more self-sufficient and have access to nutrients that come only from animal sources. Especially if being self-sufficient is your goal, overcoming fear of chickens is essential to doing so in a simple way.
In the process, after overcoming fear of chickens, you can enjoy the petting zoo more. More enjoying how your children or grandchildren play and how they can even pet chickens.
You can always ask the chicken owner which chicken is the most cuddly, just to be sure.
Want to learn more about reducing anxiety and mental techniques to get more happiness out of life? Then come to the free online master class on hypnosis.
Or register directly for one of our training courses.
Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder.
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