Why Does A Chicken Run Without A Head, How Long Can She Live Like This

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 12:53

Why does a chicken run without a head and is there life without a brain?

Many have heard or even seen with their own eyes that after chopping off the head of a chicken, it continues to run, flap its wings and even tries to take off. How can this fact be explained?

Why a chicken can run headless

On the steps of evolution, the spinal cord takes precedence over the brain. It was he who formed earlier and controlled all the movements of living beings. Currently, the spinal cord has not lost its functions and continues to stimulate reflex muscle movements, although it obeys the commands of the brain.

After chopping off the head of a chicken, it cannot perform purposeful actions, but reflexively the muscles continue to twitch, carrying out the commands of the spinal cord received immediately before slaughter (obviously - to run as fast and as fast as possible away from this terrible place).

The spinal cord controls the chicken's reflex movements.

How long can a chicken run after having its head cut off?

After the head is cut off, the chicken is in agony. The time during which it will be worn around the yard depends on the rate of blood flow. As in mammals, strength is lost with blood, and gradually the living organism dies.

This can take anywhere from a few seconds to 20 minutes, during which time the bird actually experiences pain. Therefore, the slaughters are advised to first stun the bird, and only then cut off its head. This not only reduces the suffering of a living organism, but also affects the taste of meat - it deteriorates from prolonged agony, the fibers become tough.

Can other animals live for some time without a head?

In fact, not only animals, but also a person can still live for some time after the head is cut off (well, how to live - just like a chicken, make reflex twitching with arms and legs or paws, and also open your mouth, blink or rotate eyes). It usually ends within half a minute.

This ability was noticed even during the execution of people, when their heads were cut off with an ax or directly with a guillotine knife. The body of the executed was twitching, and the head also “lived” the rest of its life.

The executioners, sometimes, even complained that those executed and after death harm the state. Their heads were thrown into special baskets, the rods of which they managed to gnaw.

The story of the headless rooster

An amazing story happened in 1945 in America, Colorado. Lloyd Olsen, who decided to please his mother-in-law who had come to visit, went into the yard to beat a young cockerel. He decided to chop off his head as high as possible - mother-in-law loved chicken necks. But, unsuccessfully hitting with an ax, he did not touch the jugular vein and even left one ear to the cock. The bleeding stopped quickly, the cock behaved as usual. Lloyd decided to watch him.

The rooster, which the owner later named Mike, was no different from his fellows, tried to peck at food and even crow. Naturally, he did not succeed in either one or the other, but the owner helped him: he put food in the esophagus, and injected water there from a pipette. The very opening of the esophagus and the breathing tube had to be cleaned regularly so that they would not be forgotten by mucus.

Rooster Mike became famous for being headless for 18 months

Mike was listed in the Guinness Book of Records, and the Lloyd family grew rich by arranging paid exhibitions. The rooster lived without a head for another 1.5 years, grew up and got fat. He died through an oversight of the owner, who could not clear his airways clogged with mucus in time.

It is extremely unpleasant to look at a tormented chicken running around the yard without a head and in pain. Many people refuse to eat meat altogether because of this. But if it is already decided to slaughter the bird, then it must be done so that it experiences a minimum of torment.