There may come a time when you need to get some medicine into your chicken orally, or to get a bit of water down her if she has been ill and not drinking, or olive oil in the case of an impacted crop.
This is quite an art to master, even if your hens are tame, as no animal likes to have its mouth held open and a foreign substance introduced. It may need two people, one to hold the bird gently but firmly on their knee, wings held to the bird’s sides.
Sometimes the bird can be made to open their beak by wiping a bit of something nice under the top of the upper beak, inducing her to lick it off; yoghurt is a good one here, or Marmite (not too much of the latter, it’s very salty). Once the beak is fractionally open you should be able to keep it that way and gently part the beak with your thumb and forefinger. This is when the wriggling starts, unless you are very lucky.
Be confident and slow with the syringe (no needle, obviously!) and introduce the liquid into the bottom beak. Some syringes are hard to get moving initially, and using extra force can shoot the fluid too far back into the bird’s mouth, risking her aspirating it (breathing it into her lungs). Give her a chance to swallow every few drops - once they realise you’re not trying to kill them they generally calm down and you can get the rest in in small increments.
A nice treat afterwards may help if you have several doses to administer over a period of days. Raisins are good, as are grapes, sunflower hearts and blackberries.