Why did the chicken cut off his head still live for another 18 months?

70 years ago, a farmer in Colorado, USA, beheaded a chicken, but the chicken did not die. The chicken named Mike survived another 18 months and became famous. But how can the headless chicken live so long?

Mysterious chicken was beheaded but still alive

On September 10, 1945, Lloyd Olsen and his wife Clara were killing chickens on their farms in Colorado. Olsen will cut off the claws, cut off the head of the chicken and the wife will shave, making the chicken clean. They treat about 40-50 chickens. But there was one chicken, even though he was beheaded by Olsen, he didn't die like other chickens.

"Head of chickens falling and a chicken still alive, running around" , Troy Waters, great-grandson of Lloyd's couple and also a farmer in Fruita, said. The chicken stood up and ran endlessly.

Chicken Mike.

By the next morning, when Lloyd Osen woke up, he stepped outside and found the chicken still alive."It is an odd, confusing part of our family history," said Clara Waters, his wife.

Waters has been told about this story since he was a boy, at which time his great-grandfather was ill and came to live in his parents' house. Trying to sleep and sleep in two adjacent bedrooms, and the old man who was sick, who often had little sleep, would talk for hours.

"You tried to bring chicken to town for sale , " Waters said. "He brought along a" stubborn "cockerel to follow, and began betting on people to get beer or something, that he had a chicken without a head still alive".

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The story of the headless cock still alive quickly spread. Local newspapers sent reporters to interview Olsen, and two weeks later a circus named Hope Wade in Salt Lake City, Utah, came and offered to bring the chicken to the circus to make money.

Finally, they took Mike drum chick to California and Arizona, taking a tour throughout the southeastern United States until Olsens had to return to the farm to harvest crops.

The chickens' trips were photographed by Clara, carefully recorded and still being preserved in a safe place of Waters.

Diary about chickens Mike.

After this first tour, Olsens took Mike to Phoenix, Arizona, where in the spring of 1947, the disease was raging here.

"That's where the rooster Mike died - in Phoenix , " Waters said.

Mike was fed liquid and water, Olsens had to drop food directly into Mike's esophagus. They fed Mike with a syringe. On the night Mike died, everyone was awakened by the choking sounds of a crying chicken.

Clara and Lloyd Olsen.

How can a beheaded chicken live so long?

What makes Dr. Tom Smulders, a chicken expert at Newcastle University, a surprise is that the beheaded chicken did not bleed to death. According to him, the fact that animals can continue to function without their head is easier to explain.

For humans, when the head is lost, most of the brain is lost. But for chicken, things are a little different."You will be surprised with the tiny brain in front of the chicken head , " Smulders said.

Reports showed that Mike's beak, face, eyes and ears were cut off. But Smulders guessed that as much as 80% of Mike's brain - and almost everything controlling the chicken's body, including heart rate, breathing, digestion - remained intact.

It is speculated that Mike survived because part or all of the brain of the chicken remained intact.

However, why do so many people try to create a chicken like Mike but still can't. This is difficult to explain. It seems that the cut in Mike's case is the right place, and Mike's chicken body was lucky enough to coagulate in time to help the chicken not bleed to death.

Troy Waters stands next to Chicken Mike's statue of Fruita, where every year the Chicken Festival is held every May.

Troy Waters suspects that his great-grandfather tried to repeat this success a few times. And so are the neighbors. That day, Mr. Olsens used to drink free beer every weekend, because neighbors kept persuading him to explain exactly how to make Mike.

Neighbors also said Mr Olsens's house "enriched in illicit" thanks to the chicken. However, according to Waters, it is an overstatement. "He earned a bit of money by doing that , " Waters said. "He bought two tractors, to replace horses and mules. He also bought a piece of luxury, a 1946 Chevrolet truck."

Waters once asked Lloyd Olsen if he was happy."Oh yes, he had the opportunity to go around and see many parts of the country that could never be. He also understood, modernized and equipped farm equipment . " But that is the past. "You still do farm work all your life, work hard".