Do zombies exist? Probably not. The closest thing we have though is a Colorado chicken named Mike. Mike the headless chicken lived without a head for 18 months.  Your first question might be: How? The answer is astonishing. The family that raised the chicken tried to kill it, aimed too high with the ax, and missed the jugular vein. Since a chicken’s brain isn’t entirely in its skull, it lived for 18 more months through a mixture of water and milk given through a pipette. For a treat, it was sometimes given a kernel of corn. He finally died one night choking said kernel of corn. So what was life like for the chicken, were there any repercussions?

Well, after this happened Mike started to freak out and run everywhere. This is quite normal because most headless chickens do this and die. But Mike survived. Soon the family started to give it a chance at life.

Besides being blind and unable to smell or hear, he did what every chicken would do. Squawk, sit on his nest, etc. When Olsen (his owner) took him on a national tour he became a sort-of celebrity.

Soon National Geographic, The New York Times, and the Guinness Book of World Records had his name. He was soon valued at $10,000 and making his owners $4,500 a month. But he eventually did die. It seems Mike didn’t suffer such a sad life. In those 18 months, it gained 5.5 lbs. and did bleed heavily when he was beheaded. Why? An autopsy conducted on him in the University of Utah found that a blood clot in his neck didn’t cause him to bleed to death during his beheading.

So did Mike’s fame have any effect besides making his owners rich? Yes, several imposer headless chicken owners attempted to follow Mike’s example. What happened was a mass of beheaded chickens that died 1 or 2 days after it was beheaded.

P.S. The image is Miracle Mike stuffed in a museum