New Delhi: Ever heard the phrase – Running around a headless chicken. The phrase is used to describe a person who is running around and stressing for no real or without a good reason. If you have heard the phrase, this has arisen from the situation when a chicken was beheaded. This article tells us more about the chicken, Mike, who survived without a head for 18 months. The chicken continues to run around with an image of random fashion.
Mike: The Headless Chicken
Mike, the chicken, lost his head in 1945 and then ran around. In 1945, his owner, Lloyd Olsen, in Fruita, Colorado, fetched Mike to turn him into dinner.
But, as he swung the axe, it missed the jugular vein and left the brain stem in place. He did not die as the blood clot prevented him from bleeding to death. As there was no head, the brain stem kept him functioning, and Mike could still strut and peck for food. Olsen did not swing again and kept the chicken alive by feeding him liquids and grains through an eyedropper.
Soon, Mike became a national phenomenon. He toured the country in sideshows and was featured in Time and Life. But he could only live for 18 months until he reportedly choked to death.
How did Mike become famous?
The day Olsen beheaded his chicken, he placed Mike in an old apple box on the farm’s screened porch for the night. When he woke up the following day, he saw that Mike was still alive.
It is believed that he decided to sell the rooster and went to the market. When he reached the market, he started betting people that he had a live, headless chicken.
Soon, word spread in Fruita about the headless rooster, and a local paper was interviewed with Olsen. A sideshow promoter travelled from Utah to Fruita in two weeks to make some money.
When they first visited Salt Lake City and the University of Utah, the chicken was put through a battery of tests. There were also rumours that university scientists surgically removed the heads of many other chickens to see whether any would live.
They soon travelled to many cities, and documentation of the bird’s travels in a scrapbook is preserved in the Waters’ gun safe even today.
When Olsen took Mike: the Headless Chicken to Phoenix, Arizona, the disaster struck in the spring of 1947. It was where he died in Phoenix.
Can a chicken survive when the head is chopped off?
The beheading disconnects the brain from the rest of the body, but for a short period, the spinal cord circuits still have residual oxygen. Without input from the brain, these circuits start spontaneously. Usually, the chicken lies down when this happens, but in rare cases, neurons fire a motor programme of running. A chicken can run for a little but not for 18 months or even 15 minutes.
Mike, the Headless Chicken, was a male Wyandotte chicken who survived for 18 months after being beheaded. Despite losing his head, Mike still achieved national fame until his death in March 1947. Every May, in Fruita, Colorado, the United States, an annual “Mike the Headless Chicken Day” is held. knowledge Knowledge News, Photos and Videos on General Knowledge
