On 10 September 1945, Lloyd Olsen and his wife Clara were killing chickens on their farm in Colorado. Lloyd would kill the birds and Clara would clean them up ready for sale.
But on this particular day, one bird out of the 40 or 50 chickens they killed that day, refused to lay down and die. Instead, it continued to run around without its head.
They put it in a box on the porch and went to bed and when they awoke in the morning they couldn't believe that it was still alive.
Lloyd put the rooster they named Mike in the back of his horse-drawn wagon and went into town. When he told the locals he had a headless chicken in his wagon, Mike became an instant celebrity.
They fed him with liquid food and water which was dropped directly into his oesophagus with an eye dropper, and cleared mucus from his throat with a syringe.
Lloyd and Clara were now celebrities and set off on a tour of the US. But disaster struck in Phoenix, Arizona when Mike passed away.
The couple woke in their motel room to the sound of Mike choking. When they looked for the syringe, they realized they had left it at the side show and before they could find an alternative, Mike suffocated.
Mike died in the spring of 1947 after surviving without a head for 18 months.
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