MIKE THE CHICKEN

Ever Feel Like A Chicken With It's Head Cut Off?
Ask Mike!

After reading my article about hypnotising chickens, one of my co-workers asked me if I knew about "Mike The Chicken". I did a little research and found some amazing facts which I have copied onto my blog. It is worth a search if you want futher facts, but here are the highlights of this pretty incredible but fair dinkum story.

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”.

Mike was on display to the public for an admission cost of 25 cents, and at the height of his popularity was earning a princely $4,500 per month. A pickled chicken head was also on display with Mike, but it was not Mike's original head as that had already been eaten by a cat. Mike was later examined by the officers of several humane societies and was declared to have been free from suffering.
Mike's legacy in Fruita

Mike the Headless Chicken is now an institution in Fruita, with an annual "Mike the Headless Chicken Day" held annually, the third weekend of May, starting in 1999. It is however not clear why Mike's day is not held on the September 10 - the anniversary of the amputation.
Events held include:
5K Run Like a Headless Chicken Race,
Egg tosses,
Pin the Head on the Chicken,
The Chicken Cluck-Off,
The classic chicken dance, and
Chicken Bingo in which the numbers were chosen by where chicken droppings fell on a numbered grid.
A wide variety of chicken-based cuisine is also available.

For futher information try this link.

Have Fun SSG OZ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken