That is what I was thinking, that they just got mesmerized.
We did the “string trick” an uncountable number of times.
Occasionally you would pick a chicken that it wouldn’t work on.
But we had to do it for other buddies in the neighborhood because they wanted to see it or participate.
We even saved off the kite string for reuse.
My guess it was 20-25 foot long, and we laid each one out on our driveway when it wasn’t hot out.
What a funny thing. Did you ever try it without the string?