Longest Surviving Headless Chicken

Longest Surviving Headless Chicken

On September 10, 1945, a Wyandotte chicken belonging to Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colorado, USA, had its head chopped off, but went on to survive for 18 months. Mike's owner, Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colorada, USA, fed and watered the headless chicken directly into his gullet using an eyedropper. Mike eventually choked to death one night in an Arizona motel.

Sceptical scientists thought it was a hoax, so one week into Mike-the-headless-chicken's physically-altered life, farmer Lloyd Olsen packed Mike up and took him on a cross-country tour from Fruita, Colorado to the University Of Utah in Salt Lake City. The axe blade, scientists discovered, had missed the five-and-a-half month old Wyandotte rooster's jugular vein, and a clot had saved the chicken from bleeding to death.

Because Lloyd had aimed the axe so high, most of the brain stem was left at the top of the spine. One ear had also survived. Mike, it seemed, had lost the power to see and to cluck, but could still hear and think. Mike was also growing, weighing 1.1 kg. (2.5 lb.) when he first lost his head, and developing to a respectable 3.6 kg. (8 lb.) by the time he passed away.

Celebrity status was guaranteed when a manager took the chicken on a national tour, and his story was reported in well-respected news magazines Life and Time. Like many legendary celebrities, Mike's life ended in a hotel room. Mike began to choke and Lloyd was unable to find the eyedropper to clear Mike's esophagus. It was the end of the road for Mighty Mike. Gone but certainly not forgotten, Mike's life is celebrated each year by Fruita residents, who simply remember him as, "a big, fat chicken who didn't know he didn't have a head".