It turns out it’s not just politicians that can live without brains, a chicken named Mike lived without its entire head for 18 months!


Mike the Headless Chicken was a Wyandotte chicken that was beheaded for the sake of providing a chicken dinner for the mother-in-law of a Fruita, CO farmer, on April 1945. Fortunately for Mike (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) Lloyd Olsen’s axe barely missed the jugular vein, and left an ear and the majority of the bird’s brain stem unharmed.


Unlike other chickens that run around like, well, chickens with their heads cut off, who are dead ducks, or chickens as it were, Mike shook off the blow and went about being a chicken, “pecking” with his neck in the absence of his head and continuing to preen himself. Olsen sat down to wait for the bird to die, but when he made no signs of doing so, Olsen decided to have something different for dinner that night and took to caring for the bird. He fed him things like milk and water through his open esophagus using an eyedropper. Small bits of gravel were also dropped down his throat to help his gizzard grind food.


Mike was initially able to walk but somewhat unsteadily. He soon got used to the situation and his new center of gravity. He could no longer crow, but instead made a gurgling noise.


Farmer Olsen took Mike to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City to be studied and the word got out about the headless bird. He was photographed for all of the big magazines and papers of the day, includingTimeandLife, and started a career as a sideshow attraction, traveling with other marvels such as a two-headed calf. He also traveled with a chicken head in a glass jar that was passed off as his. Mike’s real head was allegedly eaten by a cat and the traveling head was from another chicken, pickled to enhance Mike’s display.


At the pinnacle of his show business career, Mike was making his owners $4,500 per month (about $56,000 today). Admission to see the bird cost 25 cents, which added up to a lot of curious people. Unfortunately for chickens all over the country, Mike’s popularity lead to a string of people trying to behead their birds in just the same way. One of the copycat beheaded chickens lived for eleven days, but the rest died quickly.


Like many other celebrities, Mike choked to death in a motel room. One problem Mike often experienced was that he would choke on his own mucus. The Olsens kept syringes on hand for when this happened, to suck the mucus out. But, one night Mike was roosting with the Olsens in a Phoenix motel room between sideshow exhibits. The Olsen’s heard him choking in the middle of the night but couldn’t find a syringe to save him!


A subsequent autopsy revealed that the axe had not touched the bird’s carotid artery and Mike’s blood had quickly clotted, saving him from bleeding to death. Because most basic body functions like breathing and heart-rate, as well as most of a chicken’s reflex actions, are controlled by the brain stem, Mike remained able to function and otherwise healthy for 18 months after losing his head.


Mike may be gone, but he’s far from forgotten. At least in his hometown of Fuita anyway. The town hosts an annual “Mike the Headless Chicken Day,” the third weekend in May. Events include a 5K “Run Like a Headless Chicken Race,” games of “Pin the Head on the Chicken,” an egg toss, and “Chicken Bingo,” in which chickens are set loose in a numbered grid to do their business. Where they leave their droppings determines the numbers that are called… If extraterrestrials are watching us, it’s no wonder they haven’t bothered to make contact.
As they say on the official “Mike the Headless Chicken” website, “Mike’s will to live remains an inspiration. It is a great comfort to know you can live a normal life, even after you have lost your mind.”

SOURCE: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/07/the-chicken-who-lived-without-his-head-for-18-months/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken

Mike the headless chicken! OMG!!! Whaaaaaaaaaat!

I love my naija, a headless chicken is a meat in the soup straight away! "Heady" or "headless", the taste nor go change.

What a wonderful God!

Headless chicken that lived for 18 months
I'm not doubting God but it is very hard to believe.

Wonders shall never end• Its weird that this news is not coming from China this time

Braine bwahahahahahhahaa.
If the news was from China then what? You'd pro'ly call it Chinese product lmao.
Come to think of it, see as an ordinary farmyard chicken turned to a celebrity just cause it barely escaped death. Smh. I bet he enjoyed before his final dealth tho'.
Congrats to him, but too bad he can't phock other hen(female chicken) 'cause he'd need his head on the hen's neck to be able to do that(phock).

Interesting...

At the pinnacle of his show business career, Mike was
making his owners $4,500 per month (about $56,000
today). Admission to see the bird cost 25 cents,

Oyibo sabi waste money to watch mumu sointin sha...

Mobsync:


It turns out it’s not just politicians that can live without brains, a chicken named Mike lived without its entire head for 18 months!
/

hahahahahahaha......lolliest....that one got me cracking for minutes...

so what happend to the head?

Freiburger: so what happend to the head?

Did you bother reading ?

There's nothing this people won't make up.

abeg make una help me ask dem how the folw take they chop?

If this kind thing happen for naija now, people go they shout say na winch or work of the devil.

weird, scary..... damnnnnn

Freiburger: so what happend to the head?

The head was given to OBJ for dinner.SMH

Read the write up bro

k

ALLAHU AKBAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God you are great.

I tel u... i didnt read al dt.

"Mike the headless chicken" a new nickname 4 dumbos and mumus. Ha ha!

God at work

austinenice: abeg make una help me ask dem how the folw take they chop?

It shud be a crime to comment without reading the post on Nairaland. Oya oshi...

i cant stop laughing. mike the headless chicken... is indeed a hero in animal world

not funny

person wey no get head too fit live for 20 years

Every spirit of foolishness in me trying to believe this story fall and die by fire in Jesus name, Amen

This reminds me of ASUU STRIKE HEADLESS ISSUE AND SUSWAM WILL COME AND LIE AGAIN AS USUAL

Iriri aye!

Adiye iya oshogbo!

Funny write up!LOL!

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MzXtacy: "Mike the headless chicken" a new nickname 4 dumbos and mumus. Ha ha!

MTHC