This question stems from the numerous stories about a certain rooster
called "Mike" who was reportedly decapitated in the 1940's, but
continued to thrive for several weeks (or years) depending on which
version you read.  I have seen enough of these reports and have no
wish to see more.

OK, I admit it, I'm a skeptic.  Can you find a REPUTABLE source that
offers physiological/medical reasons why Mike's story is
SCIENTIFICALLY sound? (Or better yet--false.)

This is not for me so much as it is for the non-skeptics among my
family and friends who are always outnumbering me...making me look
like the evil, troublemaking nonbeliever.

Hi forbiddenfruit,

I thought this question looked familiar, so I checked back and saw
that you recently asked the same question with slightly different
wording, as follows:

"Is it possible for a completely decapitated chicken to continue
living
"normally" as long as it is "fed" through its neck?  I have a cousin
who is a school teacher, and she all too willing to believe such a
story."

I also read googlenut's answer, which I thought was very good and
addressed the question you asked. Since you've rephrased and reposted
the question, I'm going to attack it from a different angle, using
bits from your initial question.

I couldn't find a single scientific explanation to prove or disprove
that a decapitated bird (or anything else) can survive. I did however,
find a reference that indicates there is a scientific explanation out
there somewhere. Use your browser's 'find' function to locate the word
'chicken' on the page and you'll see that reference. The scientists
apparently were/are Mr. Adam Spencer and Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki.

Report on British Association for Advancement of Science
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/admin/committees/prizes/01-02/02rpt-lebb.htm

I did a search for Dr. Kruszelnicki and found some information about
him and an e-mail address. Perhaps you could contact him to see if he
can provide you with that report.

All about Karl
http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/aboutkk.htm
drkarl@physics.usyd.edu.au

In his answer to your first question, googlenut did an excellent job
pointing you to websites about Mike. I just don't think there's anyway
to ignore Mike's
weird story. However, that being said, Mike was not completely
decapitated!

"Scientists examined him and determined that Mr. Olsen had not done a
very good job at chopping Mike's head off.  Most of the head was
actually removed, but one ear remained intact. The slice actually
missed the jugular vein and a clot prevented him from bleeding to
death. Apparently, most of a chicken's reflex actions are located in
the brain stem, which was also largely untouched"

Mike the Headless Chicken
http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless/headless_chicken/

I've held a variety of jobs throughout my life. One of them was
picking eggs at a huge egg farm (14 barns, 1/2 mile long each, two and
three tied rows, several rows, thousands of hens) so I'm familiar with
the live critters. I can tell you from experience that chickens are
not the brightest things to walk the face of this earth. I guess
biology is to blame for that, since it seems that most of their brains
aren't even required to maintain life.

I also used to manage a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, so I know about
dead chickens, too. Experience and common sense tells me that none of
those birds had heads and every last one we cooked up was dead as a
rock. If a chicken could survive after complete decapitation, the old
Colonel would have never had his face on buckets and barrels and
billboards around the world. The chopping block is an ages-old, proven
method of offing a chicken. (Unless someone can up with another way to
kill them -- a gas chamber, perhaps?  maybe little electric chairs? 
lethal injection? -- beheading is the way to go.)

It seems to me that 'continue living "normally"' is an operative
phrase here. So what is normal for a rooster? Lots of thing, probably,
but when I think about a rooster, I automatically think it's crow.
Take away his head and away goes his mouth. Now we have a bird who has
lost one of his secondary sexual tools. He can neither let his hens
know that he's up and ready, nor can he tell other males in the area
to 'back off.'  Not normal.
 
If you have RealOne Player, you can listen to an audio clip which
explains why roosters crow. Click on the title "Why Is It: Timely
Roosters"

AAAS Science Update/Why Is It?
http://www.aaas.org/ehr/sciup/documents/october99.html#991019

Now, how can an "evil, troublemaking nonbeliever" such as yourself
convince his relatives to face what he believes to be true?   :)

In your place, I'd say I heard about Mike -- I'd admit he could have
existed and I've read about him. Then I'd point out that if I believe
the story in general, I have to believe the specific parts of the
stories which say he had  enough of a head and brain left that he
wasn't 'completely headless' as they'd like to believe. Use
googlenut's provided sources as backup.

Good luck with those relatives, forbiddenfruit!!

I wish you well,
revbrenda1st

 
Search strategy:

"why roosters crow"
://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22why+roosters+crow%22&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

" chicken survive headless "
://www.google.ca/search?q=chicken+survive+headless&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

" Dr Karl Kruszelnicki "
://www.google.ca/search?q=Dr+Karl+Kruszelnicki&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

---

Clarification of Answer by revbrenda1st-ga on 01 Dec 2002 13:20 PST

Hi again,

I just read my answer and noticed some typos which I'd like to correct
and for which I apologize.

"Lots of thing, probably, but when I think about a rooster, I
automatically think it's crow."

SHOULD read: "Lots of things, probably, but when I think about a
rooster, I automatically think about its crow."

A good effort for a stupid question and a cheap questioner.  I
appreciate the time taken to make comments and list related sites.

I was thinking of "sticking out my neck on this one," since the
preponderance of the evidence supports the story as true, but I
haven't been able to verify the folkloric medical explanation (enough
brain stem left to govern reflexive actions) of the reason for Mike's
survival. Any veterinarians out there?

markj-ga

Dear forbiddenfruit,

It seems to me that your real arguement here is whether or not Mike
the chicken was really decapitated.  And, that is a semantic
arguement. Unlike
'electrocution', the definition of decapitation does not include
'until dead'. According to the 3rd edition of the American Heritage
Dictionary decapitation is "to cut off the head of; behead".  Granted,
that will usually kill all of us backboned animals (as it doesn't
necessarily kill some other animals, say the planaria).  But, if there
is enough of a brainstem left, perhaps death is not immediate.  Then,
of course, you can argue that if their is enough of a brainstem left,
then it wasn't decapitation.  But, that is a matter of definition. 
When I looked at the same pictures you looked at, I certainly saw
enough of a neck to contain a brainstem.  It seems to me that they cut
off Mike's face.

Whatever the case.  It is a remarkable story.

When I first read your question, I thought, "this is stupid.  Of
course a chicken can't live without a head".  But, it appears that in
fact enough of this chicken's nervous system was left for the chicken
to remain alive.  Whether it lived normally is yet another question
(It seems to me that to be able to continue breathing without a head
is pretty impressive).  They actually have scientists reported as
having examined Mike and said that there was enough of a brain stem
left to keep him alive.  It doesn't sound like they were actually
trying to put anything over.  They sounded like they were reporting
what they found.


You may want to check out the story of Christina Santhouse who had a
hemispherectomy for medical reasons.  She had half her brain removed 7
years ago to combat seizures.  I thought this sounded bizarre as well.
 But, I have seen it in several reputable sources.  Apparently, the
nervous system of vertebrates is full of reduntancies.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_426697.html?menu=

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/GoodMorningAmerica/GMA020712Encephalitis_girl.html

http://www.rosiemagazine.com/kids/0208_amazingcase.html

Honestly, I'm not normally anal enough to make a big deal about a
headless chicken.  My number one goal in this exercise was to try to
show certain people that it is not wise to believe something just
because someone said it's true.  The people I refer to believed this
chicken was completely headless and lived happily for years.  They
never considered to question the story's authenticity.  If one is too
open-minded, all sorts of trash can fall in.
Poor Mike was just the latest of my relative's examples.  I discovered
Google Qestions, decided to give it a try, and the rest is history.

I want to thank both people who answered my questions.  I feel at
least partially vindicated and I'm sorry to be so cheap.  I also
enjoyed the comments from the readers.  This was a plus I did not
expect.  My next question will be a little more earthshaking.  This
has been fun.

Mr. Adam Spencer and Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki are "science comedians"
from Australia, and use the headless chicken story as a multimedia
feature of their stage show. I've seen them once, and they back it up
with solid evidence and explanation.

Dr Karl is a bit of a genius who has his own science show on Triple J
radio. Folk ask him any sort of science question and he mostly gets
them right, straight off the top of his head.

Dr Karl recently won the Ig Nobel award for his study on belly button
lint.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/lint/ecards/default.htm