The following morning a remorseful Olsen went out in search of the rooster, and found he?s spent the night sleeping with his ?head? under his wing. Feeling dreadful at the appalling injury he caused to the creature Olsen decided to do what he could to make the rooster ?comfortable? for whatever time was left to him. He named the rooster ?Mike?. A week after his unfortunate encounter with the axe ?Mike? was still alive ? and thriving. He ?pecked? at the ground, ?preened? his features and ?crowed? ? the fact that he really needed a head to do this was irrelevant to the determined rooster. Olsen?s guilt grew, and he fed Mike corn grains and milk and water using an eyedropper. Mike often choked on his mucus, and Olsen would clear it away with a syringe.

Olsen took ?Mike? to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where scientists discovered that the axe had missed the jugular vein. A clot had prevented Mike from bleeding to death, and he was left with an ear and most of his brain stem. Since a chicken?s reflexes are controlled by the brain stem this was the reason for Mike remaining as normal as a chicken without a head can remain. Guilt didn?t stop Olsen from realizing he had a marketable commodity on his hands ? Mike was soon a regular feature on touring sideshows, where members of the public paid 25 cents to look at him as well as a pickled chicken head. It should be noted this wasn?t Mike?s head; the farmyard cat had gobbled the head just after Mike?s encounter with the axe.

There was, naturally, an outcry from several animal welfare organizations, who felt that Olsen should have finished the job he?d started - I have to say I?m inclined to agree with them. But Mike wasn?t treated badly; in fact he was so well fed and cared for that Mike lived for 18 months after his head was removed. He weighed 2 ? pounds when he lost his head; at the time of his death he weighed 8 pounds! At the height of his fame Mike had a manager, was earning US$4,500/month (that?s about US$45,000 today) and was valued at and insured for US$10,000. He was featured in Time and Life Magazine.

Mike died in a hotel in Arizona in March 1947 ? he was choking, and Olsen was unable to get to him in time with the syringe. His legacy lives on ? in 1999 the inaugural ?Mike The Headless Chicken Day? was commemorated, and has been observed every year since during the third weekend in May. Activities include:

Egg tossing.

A 5 kilometre ?Run Like a Headless Chicken? race.

Pin the Head on the Chicken.

The classic ?Chicken Dance?, composed by Swiss accordionist Werner Thomas.

Chicken Bingo ? numbers are selected by chicken droppings falling on a numerical grid?

Mike has a website: http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org, and if you?re interested you can read more information about Mike online. It?s a fascinating, horribly disturbing story, and in this day and age I doubt this kind of thing would still happen ? well, not in a First World country at any rate.

Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.

The writer was born in Africa, and lived there for the first 38 years of her life. She worked in the world of public relations for over five years, running her own PR company and dealing extensively with the world of journalism and the print media. She is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/, a site for Writers. Her blog can be visited at: http://www.writing.com/authors/zwisis/blog

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