Have you ever wondered for how long the chicken would be able to live after having his head getting chopped off?
The answer is:
The chicken can live without its head for 18 months!
That's what happened to the famous Miracle Mike or Mike the Headless Chicken in 1945, in Colorado, USA. Mike was just little over 5 months old when his owner, farmer Lloyd Olsen, decided to turn him into a meal. Olsen stroke Mike's neck with an axe, beheading the chicken (the cat grabbed the head and took off), but the cut completely missed the jugular vain, one ear and left most of the brain stem intact. Because of this botched execution, Mike was able to keep his basic motor functions such as breathing, eating, walking, heart beat and even ability to balance itself on the perch - all these functions are controlled by the brain stem.
His former executioner owner took care of headless Mike and kept looking after him and feeding him with an eyedropper. He even took him to the University of Utah for an examination to finally debunk the accusations of hoax. After the facts were established and accusations debunked by the scientists, Olsen started touring with Mike around the country. In the peak of popularity, Mike The Headless Chicken shows earned up to $4,500 a month which amounts to $47,800 nowadays.
Sadly, one day, poor Mike when left alone in motel room choked to death trying to eat a corn kernel. Olsen left his eyedropper back at the show, so he was not able to save the celebrity.
Today, I learned!
Other sources used but not included under hyperlinks:
"Useless Information - Mike The Headless Chicken".
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-logic
You know... this makes beheading people a lot less fun. What a buzz kill.
Definitely hell less of a fun for you. You devil! (-:[
@logic wotttttttttt?
I beheaded a chicken back when I was a teenager - some sort of a survival must in a retreat - and I saw it walk a few steps and finally fell I had nightmares after that
and now this - really TIL ffff :D
Haha sorry :-)
I read about this. Amazing story.
I heard of the saying "running around like headless chicken". so, there's truth in it.
my god this is both horrible and fascinating
Wooh! ]:-)
Wow; a really neat story. The funny part is, Mike's owner made enough off Mike to buy himself thousands of replacement chickens!
Yeah, we could say that his chicken was almost laying golden eggs.
Rather than golden heads :D
First time I heard the story it was from a friend and I did not believe him at the time. Until I googled and found it on Wikipedia, I was amazed just the brain stem is enough to support basic functions of a chicken and keep him alive and healthy!!
I was astounded myself. The real zombie chicken :D
I heard this story a long time ago on a podcast. I always assumed it was made up because whilst you can theoretically survive with a brainstem one would expect infection to set in on the stump without some expert attention to seal up the remaining neural tissue. It was only later that I found out it is true. Still amazing though - I'm not sure if I would say Mike was lucky though - there's something so wrong about it all! It's just basically a body with just enough brain to live but nothing else.
It is creepy as hell! It seems that chicken has so little cognitive function in the brain that it can easily live without it.
It was found out later that the blood clot prevented the loss of blood and sealed the injury.
Exactly. OK - still an amazing fluke that it didn't damage the brainstem at all - just really freaky all round!
it's just, wow! it's realy TIL
]:-D
This may also depend on how you define "surviving" or "living", no?
Good point. It seems that in the case of this chicken, it was actually even thriving :-)
A good chicken is always a chicken in my stomach ( :