Happy 63rd birthday to Mike the Headless Chicken
This following is from my book THE WORLD'S WORST: A Guide to the Most Disgusting, Hideous, Inept and Dangerous, People, Places and Things on Earth.
Exotic pets are often quite ugly—that’s part of the fun in having one. Their owners think it’s neat to keep repulsive animals such as tarantulas, snakes, and hissing cockroaches. But such unadorable creatures are like cuddly teddy bears compared to Miracle Mike, the celebrated headless chicken of Fruita, Colorado.
Once upon a time, way back in 1945, Mike was but another unnamed rooster, just one of many chickens living on Lloyd and Clara Olsen’s farm and destined for the refrigerated section of the grocery store. On September 10, Mr. Olsen selected several chickens for the chopping block. As usual after decapitation, each chicken scrambled and scratched for a moment by reflex. One rooster, however, kept running around the yard, as if it hadn’t realized its head was sitting on the ground.
The next morning, the headless chicken was still proudly strutting around as if nothing had happened. Surprised and curious, the Olsens began feeding it, dripping a gruel of crushed grain and water down its throat, to see how long it could survive. And the rooster thrived—as much as it could without a head—climbing onto perches, making gurgling noises in an attempt to crow, and futilely attempting to preen its feathers with its phantom head.
Word about the headless rooster spread quickly through town and caught the attention of a local promoter named Hope Wade, who dubbed him “Miracle Mike” and sent him and the Olsens on the road. For 25 cents, people could enter a tent to see Miracle Mike in action, and peer into a liquid-filled jar containing the preserved remains of Mike’s head. (Actually, it was the head of another chicken—the Olsens’ cat had eaten Mike’s real head.) Mike was a big hit, raking in $4,500 a month (more than $44,000 in today’s money).
Soon, envious Fruitans began chopping off the heads of their own chickens with renewed enthusiasm, hoping to get another Mike—but no one was able to repeat the lucky mistake made by Olsen. He had delivered a blow that left enough of Mike’s brain stem intact to allow it to function almost normally.
Unfortunately, Mike’s second chance at life came to an end in March 1947. Because of his condition, Mike needed to have his throat cleared regularly with a syringe to prevent him from choking on his own mucus. But one fateful night, in a Phoenix, Arizona, hotel room, the sound of Miracle Mike’s frantic rasping awakened the Olsens. The couple suddenly realized that they had left Mike’s syringe back at the carnival, and they watched helplessly as the poor animal breathed his last breath, 18 months after having his head chopped off.
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Mmm, autonomic chicken.
"autonomic" made me think of "atomic". Too bad this didn't happen during an accident involving a nuclear explosion!
How?!
HOW?!?!?!?!?!
Margaret Atwood was probably inspired by this story for a scene in 'Oryx and Crake'.
Ow i forgot there:
"And after the dust settled, the glare subsided, emerged a chicken without head. And it spoke: ..."
This HAS to be a hoax.
I went to a rodeo in Fruita some years ago. It's an interesting town.
I would like to believe it's a hoax. It is far too gruesome -not to mention cruel- to be real. BTW, I am not an animal rights activist, nor will I discuss the possible sentience of chickens.
And I was thinking by some miracle of chance this chicken didn't just survive the head being cut off (which unlike previous posts, I am kind of likley to believe even if its kind of out there) I was thinking it allowed this chicken to survive 63 years! THAT would be pretty hoax worthy... Man beheads chicken, and chicken doesn't die... EVER.
@8 Mmm, zombie autonomic chicken.
This will lead to the miracle of head transplants someday, you'll see....
requisite wiki article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_transplant
Hoax? No hoax. Mike the headless chicken was very real.
I don't get it. Are walking headless chickens somehow not as yummy as non-walking headless chickens?
The article makes it sound like the Olsens really gave a fuck about Mike and not just for being a cash cow. Cash chicken? Whatever.
I suppose your windfall choking to death really is a horrible sound. But don't make it sound like they gave a fuck about the animals' life. They wouldn't have cut its head off in the first place.
I sure hope those conveyor belt chicken-beheaders do a better job. Because, you know, half-killing an animal is less humane than all-killing it.
And here are photos of Mike's head...
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/graphics/chckhead.jpg
http://www.mad-cow.org/00/chicken_head.jpg
(not really, of course)
Fruita has an annual Mike The Headless Chicken festival, and there's a statue of Mike in town. C'mon, you have to love a town that holds a "Headless Chicken Run" race. For people, not actual headless chickens.
well its quite possible that enough of the brain stem was left for it to function properly. for such a simple animal, that is.
on a less mature note; ZOMBIE CHICKEN. (cept zombies can live without anything BUT their head, so that would be a problem in my theory.
"and there's a statue of Mike in town"
I hear a lot of locals thought the headless statue was a bust...
Badump bum...
really, he was a faceless chicken. Last i checked, the brain is in the head.
I find it disturbing about all those people attempting to recreate the Mike phenom in such cruel fashion. Of course, I say this as someone personally responsible, by way of eating, for the lifes of countless fowl.
If you are what you eat, I am mostly chicken.
Doesn't anyone know how to use Google?
Yes, it's twoo! It's twoo!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken
Links'o'plenty there!
Apparently this isn't a new phenomenon.
http://sportzfun.com/photos/albums/gridiron/headless_football_player.jpg
http://loserwithsocks.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/headless-gymnast.jpg
(and the real thing again http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/46/MikeTheHeadlessChicken.jpg
First off, if this is 'real', it's a one-in-a-trillion shot with the cleaver to have severed the head of this animal at just the right point to allow it's body to continue to function as it is so documented. From the photo it is clear that the head and most of the neck are clearly missing from the animal in question. How could it be possible for 'Mike' to have continued to live and -"...climbing onto perches, making gurgling noises (ew!) in an attempt to crow, and futilely attempting to preen its feathers with its phantom head."- function as described without the required 'higher' brain areas intact?
It would seem more plausible that the chicken would 'bleed out' a few minutes after having its head severed in the 'customary' fashion than for it to survive for eighteen months. It would have to have been some remarkable genetic specimen to have blood and tissue that would coagulate instantly and was somehow spontaneously 'self-sealing' respectively.
Snort. "Because of his condition." BWAhahahahaha!
its like an effing train wreck I couldnt look away or stop reading
the local pbs station just showed a program about chickens this evening, and mike was featured, among others. it looked like just his beak and the fleshy part of the face were removed, not really his entire head (and brain?). the olsens got all kinds of hate mail for keeping mike alive, but they were able to pay off some debt with his earnings.
I was going to say, from the wikipedia article, it looks like he was really "Mike the faceless chicken."
Not that _that_ isn't cool in its own creepy sort of way.
Keep in mind that the brain stem, especially in lower animals like a chicken, control a lot of ingrained behavior, and it sounds like things like trying to crow, pecking for food, etc. There's not much thinking that a normal chicken needs to do (at least no chickens I've met), so the brain stem can handle most of the behavior.
Kinda' like me.
Gross.
Tarantulas are far from repulsive. RESENTMENT!!!
Mike's been pretty famous for quite a while now. He's listed in the Guinness book of records. Been documented and photographed in many books. According to the wikipedia article he appeared in both Time and Life magazine.
So either he was real or an extremely elaborate and well established hoax with many people from many organisations in on the scam. Personally I think the idea he's real is more likely.
From the wikipedia article "The axe missed the jugular vein, leaving one ear and most of the brain stem intact." And as anyone that has ever worked or been around enough chickens would understand they're incredibly stupid animals that rely on instinct much more than anything else which would be certainly possible to do with just the brain stem.
They should have performed CPR, or at least suck out the mucus. It was US$44k per month!
BTW, why can't we create another mike? Not with an ax and hundreds of chickens. But with a scalpel, a hot iron to cauterize the wound, and a book on chicken anatomy.
Michael, that bit about "his condition" cracked me up, too.
I can't believe there are folks in this thread who do not know about the dang old headless chicken. This is the Internet, y'all. Not only do you have the responsibility to Google possible hoaxes, you also have the responsibility to be aware of unsettling medical oddities, especially if they involve animals. What have you even been doing with your online time? Next you're going to be telling me you don't know about the cyclops cat.
Cyclops cat? I'll have to keep an eye out for that one.
*snickers* (oh lord... please make the bad puns stop...)
There's a woamn in England who is sort of the Human Mike.
She is missing nearly her entire brain ....but is a nurse, of average intelligence andonly found out she had no brian when she had a hea X ray done for an unrelated medical condition.
Sharon Parker was the name.
The mad scientist in me wonders if putting a chicken under sedation and sugically removing 'just enough' head, then perhaps sort of tucking the brain in and cauterizing the arteries on the neck would be a viable way of recreating such a specimen.
#33: If this is the story I'm familiar with, she is not exactly missing her brain. She had undiagnosed hyrdocephalus, and the center of the space her brain should have occupied was filled with cerebrospinal fluid.
She has all her brains, so to speak, but they're deformed and lining the inside of her skull surrounding the void filled with cerebrospinal fluid.
Which is a testament to the ability of the brain to rewire itself and continue functioning.
More on Sharon Parker
Doctors had initially estimated she had 10-15% the normal brain volume, but MRI tests revealed that actually she has more brain tissue than normal humans (2300 cc compared to 1300-1500ish?).
"The American doctors had discovered that although Sharon's ventricles expanded hugely because of her hydrocephalus, it was not at the expense of brain size. Part of the brain mass was pushed to the bottom rear of her skull and because her infant head swelled slightly her brain is actually occupying a larger space."
So if we cut her head off, who would suck the mucous out? (Just kidding, Mrs. Parker.)
Chickens don't have birthdays, as they aren't born, they are hatched. September 10 would be his hatch day, perhaps... or apparently not. It would be his hatchet day.
I had a cousin like that. Damndest thing.
I saw something about Mike on a DVD about chickens (I had chickens at the time). There's actual footage of him and it looked absolutley real. When they started talking about it I thought, yeah, whatever hicks. Till they showed the videos. Wild.
What, none of the obligatory "that's photoshopped" comments?
:D
Oh, Mike is very real. I am one of his biographers, having written about him in 1984 for the Fruita Centennial edition of the Fruita Times, where I was a reporter. I've seen every known picture of him in the 80's, so trust me, it wasn't photoshopped.
Now, by 1984, most of the people who knew or had seen Mike were long gone, but his legend lived on. He wasn't that big a deal, except to some old timers in 1984, but I credit my story with keeping his legend alive and eventually leading to this rennassiance of poultry power.
The only side note I have is that Amy Reiter of Salon did a story on Mike that said he lived 40 years -- this is because she cut and pasted an article from the Denver Post that inaccurately said he lived 4 1/2 years (and HTML translated the newspaper's 1/2 character as a box, hence it looked like "40"). Since I was a Mike expert and hated her column, I pointed out to them that this was totally cut and pasted -- not only do real Mike aficianados know he only lived 1 1/2 years, but chickens WITH heads don't live to be 40. The paragraph was changed that afternoon, the Denver Post was properly attributed, and my letter never made it online.