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Everyone knows about the emotional benefits of getting up close and personal with horses and dolphins, but now chickens have joined the animal therapy club.

Chickens don’t just go really well with potato salad, they also apparently offer therapeutic value, providing companionship, confidence, and a feeling of well-being to a growing number of pensioners in Britain.

Jos Forester-Melville runs the programme HenPower, a project that’s existed for over a decade now and promotes the unusual benefits of hen-keeping, from giving care home residents a focus after experiencing a series of losses, to easier interaction with their families.

According to Forester-Melville, the revelation came about as a ‘happy accident’ after a care home resident with dementia spoke a name over and over when distressed.

“We noticed that when Billy would get aggressive he’d repeat female name over and over again… It emerged they were the names of hens he’d kept when he was younger, and the home manager said ‘do you think we could have hens?”

“When we brought in a box with six hens, his shoulders dropped, his eyes lit up and it was what he was looking for. So it was just a simple way to address something that was quite problematic for him and for the rest of the residents, for the staff and for his family.”

After several pilot programmes proved the efficacy of this ‘treatment’, funding was obtained from the National Lottery to roll out the programme countrywide.

Pekin Bantam chickens are proving to be the best chickens for the job. They like to be stroked and enjoy perching on people’s laps, making them the perfect therapy animal. The experience promotes ‘interaction and can make those who are very reserved and withdrawn want to join in and hold a chicken.”

For some people who kept chickens in their youth, it simply brings back happy memories. Besides the pleasant emotional connections, the chickens also offer physical, cognitive, and social benefits, including faster healing times in patients, and greater community cohesion.

“Research that was done really highlighted the positives of improved health and well-being and reducing loneliness, and isolation. Care centres reported a reduction in having to use anti-psychotic medication… People became more relaxed and less restless because they have a function, a focus, a role.”

A study by Northumbria University, published in 2013, showed that Henpower not only helps to beat loneliness and depression, it also reduces the need for antipsychotic medication in care homes.

Therapy hens are now also being used to help prisoners get back on their feet. Chickens roam the animal garden at a State Prisoner Hospital in Scotland, where 75% of inmates suffer from schizophrenia. Far from being a threat to the animals, the patients actually treat them with tenderness and love.

Because animals provide nonjudgmental company, these sessions may be the first positive relationship that some criminals have in their lives, paving the way for successful rehabilitation.

It’s soothing, and peaceful, and can improve their overall well-being.

There is also an interactive online course for any would-be therapy chicken handlers. Chickens and You offers a Therapy Chicken Handler certificate and teaches the skills needed for chicken therapy, including handling, public speaking, transportation and bird safety.

[source:702&backyardpoultry]