Mike The Headless Chicken lived for 18 months without a noggin after a farmer, in a failed attempt at slaughter, axed off his head and missed the jugular vein. “
Miracle Mike” was eye-droppered a milk and water mixture until he met his unexpected death over a year later when he choked on a kernel of corn.
Part of the reason that a chicken can live without its head has to do with its skeletal anatomy, according to
Dr. Wayne J. Kuenzel a poultry physiologist and neurobiologist at the University of Arkansas. The skull of a chicken contains two massive openings for the eyes that allow the brain to be shoved upwards into the skull at an angle of around 45 degrees. This means that while some of the brain may be sliced away, a very important part remains.
“But because the brain is at that angle,” says Kuenzel, “you still have the functional part that’s so critical for survival intact.”