Once upon a time in 1945 there was a couple who owned a farm in Colorado.
Lloyd Olsen would spend afternoons chopping off chicken heads, while his wife Clara would look over their cleaning.
Little did they know that the fowl would not die for the next 18 months.
Word spread like wildfire, and soon Lloyd was cashing in some extra income off bets and shows.
One of them suggested the couple put the chicken up for a sideshow circuit.
At its beginning, Mike was taken to the University of Utah and subjected to a series of tests.
Scientists purportedly beheaded countless other chickens, but none other survived like Mike.
Soon, the headless chicken was crossing the road to meet its followers.
Feeding Mike with a dropper.
At the age of five and a half months, Mike weighed a healthy three and a half pounds.
After beheading, it was fed food through a dropper.
The Olsens cleared the mucus from its throat using a syringe to prevent choking.
But how was a headless chicken able to survive and move around without a brain?
Over the years, research has suggested that most of Mikes brain remained untouched despite the blow.
Normally, beheading cuts the brain off from the rest of the body, and leads to incessant bleeding.
However in Miracle Mikes case, fate and timing twisted physiology into a bizarre form.
Serendipity comes in strange ways, and often leaves us wanting for more.
Doubtlessly, Lloyd tried time and again to recreate the hatchet blow on various other chickens.
Awestruck followers and curious neighbours did too.
But only Mike went down in history as an enigma.
Its imminent death came simply though, thanks to human error.
One night, the Olsens woke up to the sound of a choking bird.
A metal sculpture in Mike’s image in Fruita.
Photo: David Herrera/Flickr
References#BBC#The Gazette
