RANDOM FACT #37 - A Chicken Once Lived WITHOUT its HEAD - for 18 Months

Talk about a miracle! Many of you may remember this unbelievable story. The whole thing was intriguing right from the get go. Why did the owner of the chicken screwed up the slaughter? It was not like it was his first time. And after realizing his mistake, why didn't he correct it and finish off the chicken - like most farmers would have likely done. Maybe it was meant to be? We've sure learnt a thing or two since then about the brain and brainstem function - at least in chickens anyways...

Mike the Headless Chicken (April 20, 1945 – March 17, 1947), also known as Miracle Mike, was a Wyandotte chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off. Although the story was thought by many to be a hoax, the bird's owner took him to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah to establish the facts.

Mike the headless chicken with Lloyd Olsen

On September 10, 1945, farmer Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colorado was planning to eat supper with his mother-in-law and was sent out to the yard by his wife to bring back a chicken. Olsen chose a five-and-a-half-month-old Wyandotte chicken named Mike. The axe removed the bulk of the head, but missed the jugular vein, leaving one ear and most of the brain stem intact.

Due to Olsen's failed attempt to behead Mike, the chicken was still able to balance on a perch and walk clumsily. He attempted to preen, peck for food, and crow, though with limited success; his "crowing" consisted of a gurgling sound made in his throat.

When Olsen found Mike the next morning, sleeping with his "head" under his wing, he decided that if Mike had that much will to live, he would figure out a way to feed and water him. With an eyedropper, Mike was fed small grains of corn and water.

Within the 18 months the miracle bird lived, he had grown from a mere 2 1/2 lbs. to nearly 8 lbs.
In an interview, Olsen said Mike was a "robust chicken - a fine specimen of a chicken except for not having a head."

Once his fame had been established, Mike began a career of touring sideshows in the company of such other creatures as a two-headed baby. He was also photographed for dozens of magazines and papers, and was featured in Time and Life magazines. Mike was put on display to the public for an admission cost of 25 cents. At the height of his popularity, the chicken's owner earned US$4,500 per month ($48,300 today) and was valued at $10,000.

In March 1947, at a motel in Phoenix on a stopover while traveling back from tour, Mike started choking in the middle of the night. He had managed to get a kernel of corn in his throat. The Olsens had inadvertently left their feeding and cleaning syringes at the sideshow the day before, and so were unable to save Mike. Olsen claimed that he had sold the bird off, resulting in stories of Mike still touring the country as late as 1949. Other sources say that the chicken's severed trachea could not properly take in enough air to be able to breathe, and it therefore choked to death in the motel.

It was determined that the axe had missed the jugular vein and a clot had prevented Mike from bleeding to death. Although most of his head was severed, most of his brain stem and one ear were left on his body. Since basic functions (breathing, heart rate, etc.) as well as most of a chicken's reflex actions are controlled by the brain stem, Mike was able to remain quite healthy. This is a good example of central motor generators enabling basic homeostatic functions to be carried out in the absence of higher brain centres.

A truly enduring headless chicken, according to Dr. Wayne J. Kuenzel a poultry physiologist and neurobiologist at the University of Arkansas, “is a very rare phenomenon.”

Don't we know it! There surely hasn't been one since! Fascinating.

Mike's spirit lives on and is celebrated every year at the Mike the Headless Chicken Festival the first weekend in June.

Source(s): wikipedia | miketheheadlesschicken | modernfarmer