The unusual story of Mike, the chicken that lived a year and a half without a head

On September 10, 1945, Lloyd Olsen, a farmer from Fruita, Colorado (USA), was killing chickens as usual.

That night, Clara’s mother, his wife, would visit for dinner with them, and keeping in mind that she enjoyed eating a roast chicken neck, she tried to save most of the neck of a chicken when cutting off its head, but when you do, he made his ax miss the animal’s jugular vein, and to his surprise, the poultry did not die.

In fact, Mike, the name that would be given to the decapitated animal some time later, was left without a head for 18 months. Olsen observed that the chicken began to peck at the ground in search of food and made preening movements. His squawks had turned into guttural gurgles. The bewildered farmer left him alone.

The next morning, when Olsen found Mike asleep in the barn, after trying to hide his head under his wing as he always had, the farmer took it upon himself to discover how he would feed this peculiar animal. Olsen fed Mike by dropping water, worms, and corn into the chicken’s exposed esophagus..

The news, replicated by local newspapers, reached Hope Wade, a promoter of shows. He had a simple proposition: take the chicken to a show circuit; they could earn some money.

A week later, he was taken to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Skeptical scientists were eager to answer all questions about Mike’s amazing ability to survive without a head.

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It was determined that the ax blade had missed the jugular vein and that a clot had prevented Mike from bleeding to death. Although most of his head was in a jar, most of his brainstem and one ear were left on his body. Since most of a chicken’s reflex actions are controlled by the brain stem, Mike was able to stay alive.

It was in Utah that Life magazine came to marvel at the story of Mike the Headless Chicken, as Hope Wade had already described him. Lloyd, Clara, and Mike then set out on a tour of the United States. Also his name made it to the Guinness Book of Records.

They went to California and Arizona, and Hope Wade took Mike on a tour of the southeastern United States when the Olsens had to return to their farm to harvest. After the initial tour, the Olsens took Mike to Phoenix, Arizona, where he died in the spring of 1947.

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Olsen’s great-grandson, Troy Waters, commented in a BBC interview that while the headless chicken could be fed by dropping water and small bits of food down its throat, his great-grandfather occasionally had to use a syringe to clear the mucus. During his stop in Phoenix, Olsen realized they had forgotten the syringe and Mike suffocated..

Now, every first week of June, Waters celebrates Mike’s spirit at a festival.

The scientific explanation of the phenomenon of Mike, the headless chicken

In 2014, Dr. Wayne J. Kuenzel, a poultry physiologist and neurobiologist at the University of Arkansas, spoke with Modern Farmer about how Mike was able to survive this experience. He pointed out that the skull of a chicken contains two openings for the eyes that allow the brain to be pushed up into the skull at an angle of about 45 degrees. This means that while part of the brain can be cut out, a very important part remains..

Cutting under the eyes is key, he says. Above the eyes only the forebrain is removed. If the bird still has a lower beak, the cerebellum and brainstem are likely still intact, which makes chicken basic motor functions and ability to breathe quite likely.

He points out that under very specific circumstances, a person can end up with a live headless chicken, even though quite a few parts of its brain remain. (I)