Earn Big Bucks… Like A Chicken with its Head Cut Off [Weirdest Survival Stories]

Posted by Brett on June 16th, 2010

Everyday this week… Brett Rounsaville brings us the Weirdest Survival Stories ever told.

skitched-20100616-204818.jpgAs I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off the other day, scrambling to find a great/weird survival story, I had an epiphany. In hindsight it’s a blaringly obvious epiphany…but an epiphany nonetheless!

For simplicity’s sake we’ll call this epiphany, Mike.

Once upon a time in September of 1945 Lloyd Olsen decided he was having chicken for dinner. Axe in hand he grabbed a struggling Wyandotte chicken named, Mike (Coincidence? No. No it’s not.) and, much like the mighty Casey, the air was shattered by the force of Lloyd’s blow…the chicken however, not so much.

Lloyd managed to miss the carotid artery and a fair chunk of the brain stem despite lopping off the better part of Mike’s head. The result?

EIGHTEEN MORE MONTHS OF LIFE FOR MIRACLE MIKE. And as we learned from our pal, Wenny the other day, not dying is worth its weight in gold. The Olsen’s began touring with Mike raking in up to $4500 a month via sideshows and fairs. But wait, that’s in mythological 1945 dollars. How much is that in REAL money, you ask?

$53073.16!

Sadly, in 1947, Miracle Mike choked to death in his swank hotel room like so many other rising stars who burn too bright. But forget dear Mike not, friends and readers! Instead, honor his memory by playing “Pin the Head on the Chicken” or entering the “5k Run Like a Headless Chicken Race” at the annual Fruita, Colorado “Mike the Headless Chicken Day” held the third weekend of every May!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find my axe and some practice chickens in the hopes of paying my rent on time this month…

Ever seen an actual chicken actually running around with its actual head chopped off? Will this beat Wenseslao or Ming Ming’s stories in the Weird Off? What else have you got for me?

  • http://weirdthings.com/2010/06/in-my-day-we-had-a-cough-drop-for-dinner-and-liked-it-weirdest-survival-stories/ Weird Things » Blog Archive » In My Day We Had a Cough Drop for Dinner…and Liked It. [Weirdest Survival Stories]

    [...] Also worth mentioning, she had no internet service in the tree and I could find no information either confirming or denying whether she was the daughter of Wenseslao Moguel, mother of Ming Ming and/or owner of Mike the Headless Chicken. [...]

  • a.

    what?! how did it eat? poor chiky :(

  • http://twitter.com/Cadmian Michael Hogan

    Know a story about a crazy scientist who decided to put a fully functional dog head onto another dog. Lived longer than some people thought it would but I think it only lived for a few weeks.

    Might have been covered on this site already though.

  • http://weirdthings.com/2010/06/a-bullet-in-the-brain-is-worth-two-in-the-weirdest-survival-stories/ Weird Things » Blog Archive » A Bullet in the Brain is Worth Two in the…? [Weirdest Survival Stories]

    [...] Miracle Mike, the headless [...]

  • http://www.amtrekker.com Brett Rounsaville

    They used one syringe to feed it and one to clean it. The night it died they forgot their cleaning syringe at the last sideshow they were at!

  • http://www.amtrekker.com Brett Rounsaville

    For some reason that reminds me of the Aquabats song, “The Cat With Two Heads.” :)