He'll never be the head of a major corporation

December 11, 2009 4:05 PM

Snapshots of Mike the Headless Chicken (NSFW, NSFV, previously)
posted by Blazecock Pileon (55 comments total)

OH GOD
posted by hermitosis at 4:16 PM on December 11, 2009

S... O... S...
posted by Sys Rq at 4:19 PM on December 11, 2009 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty sure the headless chicken released a statement the other day confirming it had sex with Tiger Woods.
posted by xmutex at 4:20 PM on December 11, 2009 [11 favorites]

Awesome. If a dancing headless chicken named Miracle Mike isn't entertainment, I don't know what is.
posted by joechip at 4:27 PM on December 11, 2009

I'm pretty sure the headless chicken released a statement the other day confirming it had sex with Tiger Woods.

No no no, it was just a little head.
posted by molecicco at 4:27 PM on December 11, 2009 [25 favorites]

how the fuck?
posted by gman at 4:29 PM on December 11, 2009

A great way to head into the weekend...
posted by Senator at 4:29 PM on December 11, 2009 [1 favorite]

Cluck the what?
posted by ORthey at 4:30 PM on December 11, 2009

thanks, Blazecock, for the heads up.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:31 PM on December 11, 2009 [1 favorite]

This is nothing to lose your head over.
posted by C17H19NO3 at 4:32 PM on December 11, 2009

This was covered in a documentary (maybe Gates of Heaven?) - his brainstem is still there, and that is the part that does the important sympathetic nervous system stuff. He was given water via an eyedropper, and was fed with tweezers directly into the throathole.
posted by idiopath at 4:32 PM on December 11, 2009 [2 favorites]

fed with tweezers directly into the throathole.

/SHUDDER-ingly put.
posted by ServSci at 4:34 PM on December 11, 2009

Keep fucking that OH GOD!!!
posted by dirigibleman at 4:37 PM on December 11, 2009 [3 favorites]

Brains—Apparently superfluous. Do you see the sort of wisdom we lose with factory farming?
posted by Toekneesan at 4:38 PM on December 11, 2009

I'm pretty sure the headless chicken released a statement the other day confirming it had sex with Tiger Woods.

My friend said to me just this morning that Tiger only fucks chicks with no brains...
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 4:39 PM on December 11, 2009 [4 favorites]

Brains—Apparently superfluous. Do you see the sort of wisdom we lose with factory farming?

I'm holding out for Chickie Nobs.
posted by hermitosis at 4:40 PM on December 11, 2009 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty sure the headless chicken released a statement the other day confirming it had sex with Tiger Woods.

Maybe someone should tell Tiger to head over to Metatalk for some chicken fucking.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:40 PM on December 11, 2009

and was fed with tweezers directly into the throathole.

Ah, of course. The throathole.









:/
posted by fire&wings at 4:43 PM on December 11, 2009

I hope for the sake of kids that Tiger stays with his wife and doesn't flow the coop, at least until they're empty-nesters. He will probably be walking on eggshells for a while, but it'll be hard for his wife to leave the house because hiring a babysitter will be setting up the fox to guard the henhouse. If he would just learn to control his cock and she would stop pecking at him, then they could........GAHHHHHHHHHHH POULTRY
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 4:43 PM on December 11, 2009 [2 favorites]

was fed with tweezers directly into the throathole.

So he can deep throat?

*rimshot*
posted by Verdandi at 4:43 PM on December 11, 2009

Maybe someone should tell Tiger to head over to Metatalk for some chicken fucking.

I was really puzzled when I saw the 'NSFW' at the top of this post. I now see you were just anticipating all these Tiger/chicken mini-slashfics.

I was gonna make some joke about 'directly into the throathole', but I think I'll leave it out.
posted by eatyourcellphone at 4:43 PM on December 11, 2009

I just can't imagine the kind of person that takes and axe to a chicken, FAILS, observes result, and then fails to take the next step and put the damn thing down for the count.

I mean, can you imagine this guy going to sleep, waking up the next morning, and the one after that, and the one after that, knowing the damn headless chicken is still walking around?

I mean, holy fuck. You ice-hearted bucket of dipshit. Let me shoot it if you don't want to...
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:47 PM on December 11, 2009 [6 favorites]

Mike the headless chicken, later nicknamed "Miracle Mike," lived for approximately 18 months. Here he is, "dancing" in 1945.

I can't seem to read that without hearing it in the voice of Grandpa Simpson.
posted by mannequito at 4:52 PM on December 11, 2009 [8 favorites]

Hace you ever killed a chicken? I have. With an axe. If it walked away, I think I too might be in enough awe to let it be.
posted by Toekneesan at 4:53 PM on December 11, 2009

More info on Mike, and video.
posted by idiopath at 4:55 PM on December 11, 2009

The one where the other chickens are looking on in obvious consternation is priceless.
posted by adamdschneider at 4:59 PM on December 11, 2009

I mean, holy fuck. You ice-hearted bucket of dipshit. Let me shoot it if you don't want to...

Is that a record? 62 year-old FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-level rage?
posted by jscott at 5:09 PM on December 11, 2009

was fed with tweezers directly into the throathole.

Fuck - that makes me hate people all over again. Who that fuck would DO a thing like that? GRAH!
posted by Pecinpah at 5:10 PM on December 11, 2009

I think faceless is more accurate. I mean, look at the picture of the animal next to its head. Just kind of a shell. There's not a whole lot inside the head of a chicken.

They probably swung the axe (who uses an axe? you use a hatchet! Or you pull his head off the old Dutch way, axes are for things requiring force.), chicken flinched, and severed right behind his little cartilagey cranium, and he ran away bleeding like they always do. 'cept this one didn't stop running. Ran around half a day. Then they caught him and he was fine, minus the beak part.

So they kept him around as an oddity, /shrug.
posted by TomMelee at 5:15 PM on December 11, 2009

Reminds me a joke my dad used to tell:

So one day Farmer Joe is out on his farm, and he notices his pond is frozen over. The well bucket-rope is frozen too, so Farmer Joe decides to go out on the lake and break some ice so he has his water. Out he goes, chop chop chop and he falls through! His screams go unanswered, and just as he's about to give up, he hears a scritching and a scratching and he summons the muster to open his eyes, and there's the pig! It's hobbled its way out to the ice, and it turns and presents to him its little curly tail. Farmer Joe takes the tail and the pig pulls him free of the pond, all the way to the farmhouse where Ms. Farmer Joe finds him and takes him inside by the fire.

The news spreads around the town, and eventually the Big City Reporter finds out about it and makes the drive to Farmer Joe's farm. Farmer Joe grants him an interview, and after telling him the true story, the Big City Reporter asks Farmer Joe if he can meet the wonder pig. Farmer Joe willingly obliges, and the Big City Reporter dutifully starts snapping pictures.

After about 3 pictures on one side, the Big City Reporter moves around the other side of the pig and exclaims "This story is even more fantastic! This pig has only 3 legs!". Farmer Joe looks confused. "He had 4 legs when he pulled me out." Big City Reporter: "Fascinating, he lost his legs rescuing you!". "No", drawls Farmer Joe.

"Well then how'd he lose the leg?"

Farmer Joe: "Thing is, pig that good? You cain't eat him all at once'd."
posted by TomMelee at 5:20 PM on December 11, 2009 [1 favorite]

...doesn't flow the coop...?
posted by Mister Moofoo at 5:20 PM on December 11, 2009

I think faceless is more accurate.

Sorta kinda.

A farmer chopped off the head of a rooster named Mike. He missed Mike's jugular vein and a lump of tissue at the top of his neck that controlled Mike's motor impulses.

Chickens don't need or use a lot of grey matter to get by in life. Most of what they do is pretty autonomic. As such, the brain stem alone covers most of the bases.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 5:22 PM on December 11, 2009

Do I have to call eponysterical? At this point do we all just trust each other to recognize this, or is typing the acknowledgment required?
posted by cmoj at 5:24 PM on December 11, 2009

Where do you think "nuggets" come from?
posted by Ron Thanagar at 5:26 PM on December 11, 2009

I went to high school in Fruita, home of Mike the Headless Chicken. I think a headless chicken named Mike is a worthy monument to my education.
posted by vorpal bunny at 5:35 PM on December 11, 2009

I read about this when I was a kid. Apparently, they went to cut his head off to eat him. Due to an unclean cut, part of his brain stem (or his whole brain stem) was left behind. He hopped up and ran around, and they waited on him to die, and he didn't.

Eventually they started feeding him because they figured it was a shame to kill him (again). Of course, he made them money as a side-show attraction.
posted by Malice at 5:36 PM on December 11, 2009

Surprising. You'd think something like this would have happened more than once.
And that exposed brain stem would be quite susceptible to infection.
posted by Flashman at 5:48 PM on December 11, 2009

Become a fan of Mike the Headless Chicken on Facebook.
posted by beagle at 5:56 PM on December 11, 2009

Mike's theme song can be Metallica's 'One'.
posted by dgaicun at 5:58 PM on December 11, 2009

According to some accounts, the day the ax fell, Mike slept with his head under his wing.

VOMIT
posted by availablelight at 6:14 PM on December 11, 2009

y'all know this is like a triple
posted by HuronBob at 6:36 PM on December 11, 2009

I just can't imagine the kind of person that takes and axe to a chicken, FAILS, observes result, and then fails to take the next step and put the damn thing down for the count.

I agree with you,and you agree with Elwynjohn "Bud" Johnson (from this video): "Any normal man'd reach down, pick him up, and cut his damn head off. Again."
posted by kirkaracha at 6:46 PM on December 11, 2009

What gets me here is the gender confusion. I thought chickens were ladies and roosters were dudes. Does Mike have something "he" would like to come clean about?
posted by grapefruitmoon at 6:55 PM on December 11, 2009

("Chicken" is gender-neutral. Female chickens are hens, and male chickens are roosters.)

I have a Mike the Headless Chicken t-shirt my dad bought me. He lived in Fruita for a little while (he was the town lawyer) and I visited him right after the annual Mike festival.

The shirt is a little more graphic than I can feel right about wearing in public. Although I admire it as an art piece.
posted by ErikaB at 7:02 PM on December 11, 2009

4th-ish
posted by acro at 7:46 PM on December 11, 2009

Mike's theme song can be Nine Inch Nail's 'Head Like a Hole'.
posted by dgaicun at 8:00 PM on December 11, 2009

Sweet. Metallica's One, Nine Inch Nails' Head Like A Hole... maybe a little Alice In Chains as well?

Aww man, what does it say about me when the soundtrack to my youth applies equally to a dancing headless chicken?
posted by mannequito at 8:23 PM on December 11, 2009

You know, I'd heard about this before, and I was really interested to see the pictures. I just didn't expect that they'd make me so damn sad.

Rest in peace, you poor, headless bastard.

.
posted by Captain Cardanthian! at 8:59 PM on December 11, 2009

Mike's theme song can be The Pixies' 'Where is My Mind?'.
posted by dgaicun at 11:15 PM on December 11, 2009 [1 favorite]

Fault Tolerant
posted by djrock3k at 11:34 PM on December 11, 2009

Mike the Headless Chicken is one of the first things I found on the internet, and still one of my favourites.

I hope you found that head in Chicken Heaven, little guy.
posted by Jilder at 5:21 AM on December 12, 2009

Aww man, what does it say about me when the soundtrack to my youth applies equally to a dancing headless chicken?

OK, let's stay calm and take this one step at a time. Do you currently have a head?
posted by kirkaracha at 8:21 AM on December 12, 2009

What gets me here is the gender confusion. I thought chickens were ladies and roosters were dudes. Does Mike have something "he" would like to come clean about?

The rooster has sex with all of them.
posted by barrett caulk at 10:41 AM on December 12, 2009

"Aww man, what does it say about me when the soundtrack to my youth applies equally to a dancing headless chicken?"

Also:

Here they come to snuff the rooster
Yeah here comes the rooster, yeah (2x)
You know he ain't gonna die
No, no, no, ya know he ain't gonna die

posted by soundofsuburbia at 7:02 PM on December 12, 2009

Jesus!
posted by OmieWise at 2:28 PM on December 19, 2009