Mike the Headless Chicken
Photo by David Herrera
In Fruita, Colorado there is a statue of a chicken made of various discarded pieces of metal. Old wrenches, springs, gears, horse shoes, you name it and it's probably there. You may notice the metal chicken has no head. This isn't a result of vandalism or even running out of old pieces of metal. This statue is a tribute to Mike the Headless Chicken. Fruita even has an annual Mike the Headless Chicken Festival which in 2019, the 21st annual festival, will be May 31st and June 1st.
You may be asking yourself "Who is Mike the Headless Chicken?". On September 10, 1945 Lloyd Olsen and his wife Clara were killing chickens on their farm to take to the local meat market to sell. Lloyd was cutting the heads off the chickens as his wife was dressing them. Surprisingly, one of the chickens didn't die. Instead of finishing the chicken off Lloyd set it aside and amazingly found the chicken still alive the next morning.
Lloyd took the chicken carcasses to the market to sell them but took the headless chicken with him also. While waiting on people to buy his chickens, Lloyd starting betting people beer that he had a live headless chicken.
Image from miketheheadlesschicken.org
Soon the newspaper found out about the headless chicken and did an article on it. Two weeks after the article was published a side show promoter visited the Olsens and convinced them to put the chicken in the side show. Lloyd and Clara took the chicken on the road charging 25 cents to see the Miracle Mike, the Headless Chicken. During this time Lloyd and Clara, from 25 cents a person to see the chicken, were making around $4500 per week. A virtual fortune in 1945.
Mike lived for 18 months without a head traveling the country. Lloyd fed and watered the chicken with a dropper directly into it's esophagus and the dropper was also used to remove mucus from the chickens throat. Mike died in Phoenix, Arizona choking to death on mucus when Lloyd had failed to bring the dropper back to the hotel after a side show.
Although many chickens have died as people tried to reproduce another headless chicken, it's never happened again.
Seriously? Not sure if I am amused, shocked or grossed out.
And who would name a chicken Mike? One festival I might skip. Do they serve fried chicken at this festval I wonder?
I think fried chicken would have been Mike's fate had he not had a stroke of luck. Besides, I kinda like sharing a name with a famous chicken.
This is interesting
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I first heard of this at a bar a few years ago. Had to look it up to make sure it just wasn't some bar story but found out it's true. Amazing what you can learn over a beer or two.