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It really happened. On 10 September 1945, Mike (who wasn’t named “Mike” at the time) was going to be dinner. Such is occasionally the fate of roosters like him. Lloyd Olsen was sent that fateful morning to find a chicken for dinner. He wanted to please his mother-in-law, and thus aimed his killing stroke to leave her the most neck as possible—yes, there are people who like to eat chicken necks. He took careful aim, and decapitated the five-and-a-half-month-old fowl. Like all birds who lose their head, Mike went out of his mind. That’s expected.
The unexpected was that he stuck it out. He tried to peck for food, he tried to preen, but it didn’t work so well without the beak. Lloyd left him be for a while, and the next morning went out to find Mike (still not named “Mike” yet) with his stub stuck under a wing, and still not dead, Lloyd figured he couldn’t kill a guy so dead set on living.
And live, he did.
Mike was packed up and moved to the University of Utah, who documented in no uncertain terms that this chicken was indeed both headless and animate. He was fed grain and water through a dropper, and in the eighteen months that he lived without a noggin, he gained near six pounds, so his inability to feed himself didn’t slow him. He was featured in Time and Life magazines, and was described as being “as happy as any other chicken”.
Mike passed on in a sadly mundane fashion, choking to death on a bit of food while the Olsens tried in vain to dislodge it. Dead, but not forgotten, every May the city of Fruita, Colorado holds a festival in his honor, and they say, right on the website, “Attending this fun, family event is a NO BRAINER!”
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And from the attic comes another top story for the belfries big wig. A story so cerebral that the pumpkin shaped skull of my noggin could hardly noodle over the facts. This old cranium’s think tank must have been leaking gray matter from its dream box.
…Mike passed on in a sadly mundane fashion, choking to death on a bit of food…
Damn interns.
Hmm… Maybe the reason he just wouldn’t die is that Mike was the reincarnation of Rasputin.
Dementia said: “Hmm… Maybe the reason he just wouldn’t die is that Mike was the reincarnation of Rasputin.”
You are reading a heck lot of articles here these days.
one word………HOGWASH!!!!!
I recall a lesson from my Psychology studies in high school; not sure if this is the same story (how many headless chicken stories can there be? :P) but from what I remember it was found that the head wasn’t removed correctly, leaving a small part of the brain intactish… This resulted in Mike being able to function more or less normally. As I say, I may be thinking of a different story, but Damn Interesting as always.
How did he choke without a head?
You choke in your throat, not your mouth. Mike had a throat, so he could (and seemingly did) choke.
Enter your reply text here. Ok
Choking the chicken. I mean the chicken chocked.
Well said.
Hell yea!
A pack of damned lies!
As bogus as this may sound, it is well documented. There was a write-up about Mike in various magazines and papers, most notably Life and Time magazines. He is also listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.
At the University of Utah they determined Mike was a consequence of various factors combining at the right time. As in the case of “Nearly Headless Nick” (Reference “Harry Potter”) the axe had not completely removed the head with the single chop. Doing such, it missed the jugular vein keeping the cock from spewing vital blood, as most decapitated chickens will. This allowed a clot to form in the vein so that when the minute bit of tissue finally tore loose, the vein was sealed. Next was the location of the cut, high upon the neck, thus leaving most of the bird’s brain stem and a solitary ear. Because of the primitive nature of a fowl’s nervous system most of the reflex actions are controlled by the brain stem, which was ample enough processing power to keep what remained of Mike alive.
From the University of Utah, Mike hit the road. He visited various cities across the US including Los Angeles, Atlantic City, and New York where the curious and skeptical paid 25 cents to see the Headless Wonder Chicken. Spectators could gaze upon the very mobile headless bird with the head watching lifelessly, displayed in a jar nearby.
Mike was such a media hit that they insured him for $10,000.00. Not a bad bit of change for a KFC wannabe, not quite dead fowl in Post World War II America.
Unfortunately Mike joined his head in lifeless rapture when the Olsens stopped for the night at a remote motel in Arizona and Mike started to choke. They searched frantically for the eyedropper used both to feed and clear out his open esophagus, but to no avail. One could assume they considered the Heimlich Maneuver but decided against it. After all it would be 29 years later when Dr. Henry Heimlich published the correct procedure in a paper. Until then, most people reported a foul taste when trying the procedure incorrectly. (Okay, bad joke, sorry) Mike passed away while they checked the front desk for a possible substitute.
While returning from one of these road trips the Olsens stopped at a motel in the Arizona desert. In the middle of the night Mike began to choke. Unable to find the eyedropper used to clear Mike’s open esophagus Miracle Mike passed on. Appeared in life magazine
Go here to view a segment about Mike from the TV show “Ripley’s Believe it or Not”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATz3AdbjyRI
The Don
Has anybody ever tried to replicate the Miracle Headless Chicken? I mean, why haven’t a bunch of strong-stomached scientists just gone to a chicken slaughter house and systematically chopped heads off chickens until they got one that stayed alive?
MacAvity
I’m pretty sure there are some serious ethical issues with repeatedly slaughtering chickens in the hopes of creating a zombie.
Not to say that everyone worries about ethics, but for the sake of creating a curiosity-
I think they didn’t cut the brain correctly. All they would need to do to replicate it, is to give a chicken blood clotting genes/medications, and then cut off only the front part of its head. I would never eat a chicken that was alive for 18 months after its head was cut off. And yeah its very unethical.
For once, I know about a topic before reading it here.