Edgar Allen Poe and the Mayo Werewolves

August 8, 02

After last week's story, one of my colleagues at work phoned and explained that farmers in Nebraska contend that chickens are for the freezer, not for hypnotizing. Another co-worker told me that my description of mesmerizing chickens is exactly what bird hunters do to train their dogs. They take a pheasant, tuck its head under its wing, rock it a few times and lay it down in some brush where it will stay until the Pointers find them. Then the hunter walks up, nudges the pheasant ever so gently and humanely with the tip of his boot, at which point the bird takes to the air.... and gets shot. So far I haven't had to resort to gunfire upon waking any of my chickens up, but....

We do have way too many roosters. We haven't culled out the boys from our crop of straight run hatchlings that we raised from eggs this winter. The poor hens are taking a beating. Not only that, but our three geese seem to find fulfillment in life by acting as the chicken yard sex police. Every time a hen gets mounted, the geese come charging, necks outstretched and squawking like a flock of Canadians (geese, that is) heading south for the winter.

All of this generally takes place under the bemused eyes of several crows. Do you remember when our economy was run by "trickle down" policy, whereby if you feed the horses enough grain, the sparrows at their feet will eventually get fed? These days it seems that the barnyard operates under "trickle up" economics, whereby if you feed the hens, geese, goats, sheep and camel enough grain and table scraps, the crows up above have some fine dining.

I see that crows in certain parts of the state (not unlike several of their human counterparts at the top of the economy) are dropping like flies. I walked into work this week, and one of the researchers said, "Follow me." He led me through several code-locked security doors, and finally into a cold room. There, stacked on carts and in fume hoods were stacks of dead crows wrapped in plastic grocery bags (as in that seemingly universal modern phrase heard all across America these days, "Paper or plastic?" Whichever I feel like choosing that day, when the cashier gives me the total, I respond by asking her "Do you want paper or plastic?"... the other seemingly universal meaning of the phrase.)

Anyway, my research friend is being sent dead crows from all over the state to be tested for West Nile Virus. He said that there are confirmed cases in the state now. Not quite as bad as Louisiana yet, but.... as the little girl in Poltergeist said, "They're here..."

I guess that I should not mind the crows in our chicken yard serving as sentinels for the virus. When they start dropping over dead, I had better keep all of the critters inside the barn at night to protect them from the mosquitoes. Come to think of it, I guess that I should also make sure that the stickers on the mosquitoes that I slap on me are all pointing away so that I don't get injected. Anyway, will I ever again scorn the crows?.... Nevermore. Nevermore.

Finally, speaking of tales of horror, another colleague pointed out an article to me that confirmed a "tall tale" that I had told her previously about ther origins of the Werewolf myth. It seems that in Central Europe years ago, a number of persons had a disease called porphyria. In this syndrome, compounds called porphyrins are deposited in the skin and teeth. These compounds cause photosensitivity, so the victims avoid the daylight. People with porphyria also usually suffer from hypertrichosis (an abnormal hair growth that can occur in patches or all over the body). Porphyrins are also fluorescent, so that they emit red light whedn stimulated by ultraviolet light.

Anyway there was a point in history when you could roam the night streets in Central Europe when the moon was full and reflecting lots of ultraviolet light. On your stroll it was not uncommon to pass people with excessive facial hair strolling in the moonlight. If they smiled at you, their teeth would glow blood red... hence the story of the Werewolf. Don't believe me? The best example I have ever seen is in an article entitled "Childhood Porphyrias" in the most recent issue of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings 2002;77:825-836.

Chicken Stunts

August 1, 02

My wife finally allowed Crazy Ray back on our property. (He was the guy that was with me when I bought the camel.) He and I were standing around among the goats, sheep, geese and chickens admiring Kookamunga, when Ray said, "Ever hypnotize a chicken?"

I had heard that Al Gore could hypnotize a chicken, but put it in the back of my mind when it became obvious that it didn't get him enough votes to win the last election.

"Heck no, but I'm always ready to learn."

So I chased down my favorite rooster, Brewster, which didn't take much effort since I like to hold him on my lap while watching an occasional television program. He seems to like it too. So he allows me to catch and carry him around pretty much at will.

I held Brewster and Ray started twirling his finger around a few inches in front of its beak. That didn't seem to do anything, though.

"Huh! Something's wrong with that chicken. Go catch another one."

No luck with the next one either.

So Ray says, "I don't know what's wrong. My Dad used to take a stick and draw a line on the ground and make the chicken look at it. I could never get it to work, though."

So we got a stick and scratched a line in the gravel of the drive. I put the chicken down on its side placing its beak at the end of the line so that it was staring directly down it going off into the distance. When I let go, the chicken didn't move a muscle for ten or fifteen second. Then it just got up and strolled away. That seemed to sort of work. Enough to intrigue me into going on the Internet to learn more.


I learned that the phenomenon is called "tonic immobility" by animal behaviorists, and it is actually used as a stress test in the poultry industry. If a chicken has been put into a state of fear during handling, the immobility can last hours. The less stressed the happier the chicken. I guess that my chickens are just too happy.

I also learned that you can put the chicken on its back and rub its belly to immobilize it. I tried that one and it seemed to work for as long as I was willing to hold it. I always suspected that a chicken had a lizard brain. It must be true since rubbing bellies is supposed to work on alligators too.

When my mother-in-law found out what we had been up to, she said, "Well, you didn't have to go onto the computer to learn how to hypnotize a chicken. All you do is just tuck its head under its wing and spin it in a circle in front of you about three times, and it will be out."

So I tried that with one of our other roosters. I tucked his head up his armpit and held it there, drew a circle in the air with it three times while saying, "One. Two. Three. Alakazam. Fall asleep, or you're chicken Spam." I then layed him down on the ground and he stayed. And stayed. And stayed. Finally, I pulled his head out from under his wing. His pupils dilated from a constricted state. And he just strollled off calmly as though nothing had happened.

So now I know how to hypnotize a chicken, but the question is what ideas dare I plant in their little minds?

What's next? While doing my internet search, I also found that llamas are supposed to become hypnotized if you gently rub thier upper gums between their split lips. A llama is nothing but a South American camel, and I know that you cam immobilize a difficult horse for shoeing or vaccinating by running a stud chain up under his upper lip.

Well, I've tried and tried. So far, though, Kookamunga just raises his head out of reach every time I stick my finger up his gums. And Crazy Ray wants to know why I am so darned set on brushing the camel's teeth.

I think I'll be working on my Master's of Mesmerism for a while.

Recipe of the Week

June 13, 02

Last week our neighbors were out walking and watched as my favorite quarter horse, Clyde, approached a skunk traveling across the pasture. My horse had his head down, ears perked, and was all innocent curiosity. Then the air around Clyde's face turned blue. He got it square between the eyes. That sent him prancing and bucking with his lips curled back in what they call the flehming response. The neighbors had a good chuckle, but I was none to pleased when I went to mess with him.

We had known for a while that a skunk had taken up quarters under our chicken coop, but live and let live. Right? Then we noticed that one of our geese had lost its eggs in the night. Then the weather turned warm, and my wife started gagging every time she opened the chicken coop door.

OK. It was high time to get rid of the skunks (and for me to make up for some recent acts that my wife had quite arbitrarily deemed as mistakes in judgement on my part). I would catch that skunk and absolve my good name. So I got out the live trap and stuffed some bread in it and set it outside the chicken coop Monday night.

Tuesday morning came and all I could think of was returning to the joys of writing clinical and scientific papers, so I blissfully left home for my office early without giving the trap another thought.

It didn't take long for the phone call to come. My wife discovered that I had successfully trapped the skunk, but far from being pleased, she wanted me to drop what I was doing and come get rid of it. I guess I hadn't thought about that part.

So I asked around the office, and was told that others had tried shooting skunks in live traps, but that didn't stop the skunks from signing their last testaments in their death throes. They said the best thing to do was to throw the trap in the river and drown the critter before taking it out. They didn't say how you were supposed to get close to the trap and get it to the river before the skunk took notice of your presence.

Well, I considered the drowning option, but my daughter in Montanas had just called me that weekend and related to me her story of nearly drowning when her kayak flipped on a squirrely, elevated eddy line in a flooded whitewater gorge in Montana. She had been literally sucked out of her boat and down into "the green room" where there isn't much light. After swimming and swimming, she still couldn't find the surface. She is also a scuba diver, and was trained to hold her breath for long periods in ememrgency situations. She had nearly passed the point of choking back her violent urge to ghasp when she finally broke the surface, got to the rock face of the gorge wall, and scratched herself up to a firm handhold to wait for a rescue. That was too close for comfort, and having been a whitewater boater myself, I could relate all too closely with her experience.

Could I put a poor skunk through the drowning experience? Naw. There must be another way.

By the time I got home, a couple of guys building fence for us had tried to throw a blanket over the trap, and in so doing, gave cause for everyone in the valley to close their windows and light some candles. That was the extent of their attempts. So now I faced a pungent trap half covered with a blanket.

Think. Think. Think.

Then I got it. I went to the barn and got out my old faithful can of tractor engine ether spray starting fluid. I slowly approached the trap and pulled the blanket over the entire thing, lifted a corner and emptied half the can. Then I waited. Then I peeked. The polecat was wide-eyed and looking at me, so I sprayed again and waited. There came a point that I thought that it was surely knocked out or overdosed, at which time I gently, but gingerly, picked up the trap, still covered, and moved it to the truck. I found a spot in some remote woods and slowly lifted the edge of the blanket enough to open the trap door. Well, out he came and "high tailed" it out of there. Unfortunately I was standing in the jet stream. Which brings me to the Recipe of the Week:

Go to th cupboard and find that you have no tomato juice (which never worked in the past anyway).

Then remember your college chemistry. Alkaline hydrogen peroxide (30% water, 6 M NaOH) is used to scrub hydrogen sulfide from waste gas streams in the laboratory, and it also works well for destroying excess thiols in dilute aqueous solutions. Skunk spray is composed mainly of low molecular weight thiols, so try a version of the alkaline hydrogen peroxide reagent:

1 qt 3% hydrogen peroxide
1/4 cup baking soda
1 tsp liquid soap

Use it for a sponge bath; rinse with tap water; and VOILA!

It actually works.

So much for Papa Skunk. Now for the Mama and her babies. Now that she has sen how it is done, I'm trusting that my wife will take care of them while I'm working. I just hope that she goes out and buys some more hydrogen peroxide before she attempts it. (Which reminds me. I left what was left in the jar on the rim of the bathtub. I hope she doesn't think it's shampoo. Oh well. I always wondered what it would be like to be married to a bleached blond).