In many public pages on social networks you can find a photograph of a headless rooster, which allegedly lived in this state for 18 months. We checked whether such a story actually happened.
Publications with stories about this amazing bird are especially common on VKontakte. They can be found, in particular, in public "5 Quick Facts", "Interesting Facts", World of History, "Book of Records" And “Why didn’t I know this?” — each of them is subscribed to by more than a million social network users.
In October 1945 in the British magazine Time came out A short note on the development of atomic weapons. At the end of the text, the author said: “A miracle happened in Fruit, Colorado. The farmer cut off the head of a rooster named Mike. He missed, leaving the jugular vein and the upper part of the neck that controlled Mike's motor impulses. Last week, a month later, Mike was still running around with no head. They fed him, he flapped his wings and even tried to crow. Human society, like Mike, made do with its reflexes.”
The story told by the author of the British publication was not fiction. At least in the fall of 1945 about the miraculous rescue of Mike the rooster wrote several newspapers in different US states, for example in Texas and Washington. Some not only described what happened, but also criticized farmer Lloyd Olsen for his inability to use an axe. By message newspaper Fort Worth Star-Telegram, eight days after his failure, Olsen brought Mike the rooster to an exhibition in Salt Lake City and showed how he managed to feed the bird grain and worms.
In 2015, BBC journalists we talked about the rooster Mike with Olsen’s great-grandson Troy Waters. According to him, his great-grandfather and great-grandmother killed chickens to later sell the carcasses. One of the several dozen birds that fell under the ax nevertheless rose to its feet and began to walk. The rooster was placed on the veranda overnight, but in the morning Olsen discovered that he was still alive. After some time, the farmer himself, his wife Clara and the rooster Mike went on a small tour of the USA, where they showed the strange animal to everyone. On this trip, Mike the rooster died in the spring of 1947 in Phoenix due to the fact that the owners forgot to clear his throat of mucus. According to Waters, the farmer personally told him this story when he was an old man.
According to scientists, this survival rate is quite understandable. Tom Smulders from Newcastle University draws attention because the chicken's brain is very small and is located in the back of the skull. Olsen's ax blow severed the beak and snout, but left most of the brain intact. At the same time, it was critical for survival that a blood clot form to prevent bleeding. This can also explain the fact that numerous attempts to repeat Olsen’s “experiment” did not lead to success. Opinion of my British colleague divides Wayne Kunzel from the University of Arkansas.
Although Mike the Rooster briefly became a local celebrity, his case, while rare, is not unique. Around the same time, at least two other similar birds lived in the United States. For example, in 1946, the Kansas newspaper The Wichita Beacon published photographs of a chicken that its owners could not kill and which continued to live without a head. A year later, a similar story told to its Arizona Republic readers. The material was about a chicken that lived a little more than two months after beheading, but fell ill and the owners decided to euthanize it.
Even decades later, Mike remains a star in Colorado. In the town of Fruita, where the Olsen family lived, even installed monument to the famous bird (pictured above). There regularly passes an entertainment festival named after Mike.
Is it true
- Snopes. Did ‘Mike the Headless Chicken’ Live for 18 Months After Losing His Head?
- BBC. The Chicken That Lived for 18 Months Without a Head
- Modern Farmer. Here's Why a Chicken Can Live Without Its Head
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