This story found its way to me on Friday, October the 13th. For those who are wary of Friday the 13th, I remind you that it was specifically OCTOBER, Friday the 13th in the year 1307 that may be the origin for why some consider it to be a day of ill omen. Since it has nothing to do with chickens, I’ll leave it to you to search the interwebs for what happened that day.
At any rate, today is October the 15th. The Ides of October. That is, if October has ‘ides’. I know that apart from March, some other months technically have ‘ides’ (whatever the heck an ‘ide’ is), but I’ll be damned if’n I can remember which other months those are!
Well … after I encountered the disturbing tale that I will recount later on in this post, I thought I’d look for other ‘scary’ chicken material to relate to you on this fine October day.
As it turns out … chickens DO NOT strike fear in the hearts of the general public so the material is thin at best. Never the less, I will sally forth bravely and at least provide a little chicken related hallowe’en fun!
First, I give you the chicken version of a slasher tale!
Then, swiftly on to a chicken ‘restless spirit’ occurrence.
Onto this still image from the Woody Allen film ‘Sleeper’ a comedy wherein giant chickens are farmed in a dystopian future (among other silliness).
Here is a still image of some sort of zombie chicken from a film that I will not name, because not only is the film so highly inappropriate for children, but also so incredibly bad that it is inappropriate to any modicum of basic human intellect. Now that I’ve said that, I know SOMEONE will ultimately search the image, find out the title of the film, and go off and watch it. I will tell you this … don’t do it. Even an evening spent trying to sit through “The Star Wars Holiday Special” from 1978 would be time better spent. So if you do this thing … this horrible, horrible thing. You have been warned, and I’m not kidding!
And, here is an image from the titling of the program “Robot Chicken”. A lot of good horror themes here. Mad scientist, a kind of a ‘frankenchicken’, cyborg crossover, and a nod to “A Clockwork Orange” all tossed together.
Just in case you’re getting the impression that the concept of the ‘scary chicken’ is a completely modern phenomenon, there is the case of the cockatrice.
This unnerving little serpent poultry abomination is a medieval mythical beast that apparently occurs when a rooster lays an egg (a decidedly rare occurrence) and that egg is then hatched by a toad or a snake (another exceptionally rare occurrence). Besides producing a beast that is already terrible to behold, the cockatrice is deadly in three ways. Its touch, its breath, and its very gaze are enough to cause death. Hard to imagine a rooster being a fearsome beast in English folklore, but a half lizard, half chicken thing that flies and can kill you with a look would certainly give pause to the medieval mind.
As a last little bonus thrown in … if you search YouTube for a song called “Ghost Chickens In The Sky” you will not be disappointed. Or perhaps you will … all depends on your level of expectation.
And thus, onto the disturbing true life tale from the annals of history. I caution you at this point that the following is one of those weird little things that happen along the way of life, the circumstances of which are ‘odd’ at the very least. I am including this tale here because some folks like something truly off beat during the hallowe’en season, but as I said, it really is a disturbing story, and if you’re not looking for that, scroll back up to the funny pictures above and then move on with your day!
No doubt you’ve seen plenty of those clickbait ‘shocking but true!’ type stories that expose you to endless advertising without really giving you much of a story. I’m going to provide you with the story HERE and a couple of links at the end just in case you want any sort of verification. I also caution you that the links will provide photographs, which I will not be providing in the tale below
I give you:
The Tale of ‘Miracle Mike’ the Headless Chicken.
Fuita, Colorado farmer Lloyd Olsen would raise a few Wyandotte roosters for meat for his family and for sale. Not being a young man at the time of the following events, he was used to dispatching and processing birds for food.
On September the 10th, 1945, he, with axe in hand, set about the task. According to his grandson, he processed a few birds that day. It is not uncommon for a beheaded chicken to flop around a bit in an uneasy fashion, but trust me when I tell you, that bird is dead. The disturbing flopping is due to the spinal cord contracting causing some involuntary movement and that stops within a few minutes. The bird, already being dead, feels nothing. But on this day … one of his beheaded roosters stood up.
Apparently, this one particular rooster decided not to die.
Most people would put that poor rooster down immediately, and I would agree with that. But for whatever reason, that day, Lloyd Olsen decided instead to treat the bird’s injuries, care for it and he named the rooster ‘Mike’.
How long could a rooster live with such an affliction? On his own, not long. Lloyd Olsen, apart from whatever treatment he might have given the bird, fed Mike water and milk with an eye dropper and by placing small pieces of feed and cracked corn directly into his esophagus. He also used the dropper to make sure that his wind pipe was free of fluid and mucous so that Mike could continue to breathe.
Mike had been about five months old at the time of his beheading, and thus nearly grown. With Lloyd’s continuous care, he actually put on weight and thrived. By reports, Mike, acting on instinct, would attempt to ‘peck’ at feed and preen himself with his neck stump, though he was unable to actually succeed at these things. It is reported that he would even attempt to crow, though that apparently sounded like a weird gurgling noise.
Lloyd’s friends and neighbors would stop by to see the rooster. Eventually, a sideshow promoter heard of the animal and convinced Lloyd that Mike should be part of a traveling side show. According to his grandson, Lloyd saw an opportunity to make enough money to pay off all of the family’s debts and get some new equipment for the farm. At the height of Mike’s popularity, he was earning about $4,500 per month which they say equates to about $48,000 in today’s numbers. Mike even traveled to England for a few dates. Naturally, even people at the time thought this whole thing was a hoax, but Mike was taken to the University of Utah which verified that the claims were true.
Sadly, one night in an Arizona motel, Mike suffocated on some fluid caught in his throat and passed away in March of 1947. Eighteen months after losing his head.
So how can this even be possible? Apparently, on that particular day in 1945, Lloyd Olsen’s aim was not true. He took off the bird’s head, sure enough, but the axe was off its mark leaving the poor rooster with most/all of its brainstem, one ear, and an intact jugular. Only by peculiar happenstance did the blood quickly clot from the injury, preventing the rooster from bleeding out and dying right then.
Here is a link from YouTube to the story (an eight minute segment from some larger story about poultry farming, I think). The video includes interviews with Lloyd’s grandson and local friends who had been alive at the time to see the rooster in person.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqDjRCHyjTY
Here is the link to the Wikipedia article about this particular bird.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken
In reading this tale, I am not quite sure how to process it. I know that EVEN IF Mike had not been bound for the table, or faced his strange accident, and lived a full life, he would’ve passed away more than half a century ago, yet I still feel empathy for this poor creature! Although I am okay with humanely dispatching livestock for food, I can not abide with cruelty. Yet, neither can I judge the actions of a man or his situation from over 70 years ago. Is it a triumph of the spirit that Mike lived? Shouldn’t the rooster have been put down immediately? With only a brain stem and none of the other brain functions, would he have even felt pain? Surely, without upper brain function, he could not have even been aware that he was alive at all. Between roosting, crowing, preening, and walking, how much of a chicken’s behavior is wrapped up in the instinctual brain stem levels?
Tales like this and the questions they raise disturb me. Yet, as a student of history, I am compelled to read about these things. And … as a douche bag … I am compelled to share them and inflict you with the knowledge!
Naturally, I didn't relay any of these ideas to my flock, lest I disturb the poor dears. Since they are no longer allowed to watch late night television, they've been sleeping better at night and I don't want them to experience any nightmares! But I did casually ask Coq Au how long he figured a creature could live without a brain. He retorted "I dunno, how old are you?"
Oh well, at least he and I are 'communicating' and not fighting!
Happy Hallowe’en!
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