June 9, 2003
A: FROM MENTOR DENISE HARBERT IN IL
I am shocked and fascinated by this story. I read through both of the
other mentors' answers (Sharon Rosh and Desiree Butter) and came to the
conclusion that I think they are both right, even though one said a
headless chicken is possible and the other said it isn't. How can I think
they're both right? Because I'm a mathematician and a statistician. Math
has a specific right/wrong or true/false answer. Statistics is a type of
applied math that helps determine what is probably true, or what the most
likely answer is. (See my GEM-SET biography for more on this.) One of the
mentors approached the question using memory psychology and mathematics and
the other approached it with statistical logic.

Because it was a huge media event in 1945 with an "urban legend" story
following for a decade or so after, some older mentors probably have vivid
childhood memories of seeing photographs or television shows of Mike "The
Headless Wonder Chicken". Some younger mentors like myself have no such
memories because the story had faded by the time we were kids. For
example, I asked my mother (who knows very little about science) if she
thought a chicken could live without a head and she said, "Yes. Mike
did." She could vividly recall where she was, how old she was, and every
detail about the first time she saw Mike because it deeply disturbed
her. This is a "flashpoint memory". When a shocking or highly emotional
event occurs, people remember every detail of the moment when they saw or
heard it. I vividly recall when John Lennon and President Reagan were
shot, when Elvis Presley and my maternal grandfather died, when the Chicago
Bulls won their first "Three-Peat" NBA championship by 1 point in the last
4 seconds of the game, etc. However, I have no memory of the first time I
learned who Lennon, Reagan, Presley, my grandfather, and the Bulls were
because discovering their existence wasn't traumatic or emotional. Thus,
mentors who have heard Mike's headless story would probably never forget it.

On the flip side, mentors who don't know Mike's story would reason that
chickens can't live for long without a head. How likely is it that a
headless chicken could live? There are several ways to compute it, but
I'll start by assuming that Mike was the only living headless chicken in
the past 100 years. Any farmer finding such a chicken in the past century
would probably realize the value of keeping it alive for publicity
money. Before that, farmers may have had more need for the food and might
have let Mike die. Next, I need the number of chickens killed in the U.S.
in the past 100 years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has data on the
number and pounds of chickens farmed, but only for the past 15-30
years. However, I did find over 100 years of U.S. Census Bureau population
data, which gives me the number of people in the U.S. Now, how many people
eat how much chicken? I eat chicken 1-2 times a week, which is about 1
chicken per month or 12 chickens per year. Some people eat more and some
don't eat it at all. I'd guess that averaging the chicken lovers and
chicken abstainers would result in about 25% of the U.S. population eating
as much chicken as I do. However, that amount would have been smaller
prior to the 1960s, when chicken farming was revolutionized. Today,
chicken is cheap and abundant. In the 1940s, it was more expensive and
less prevalent than beef because chickens are smaller than cows and they
used to be harder to raise. Therefore, I made several assumptions by
decade and computed the numbers below.

year: (# of people in the U.S.) x (% who eat chicken) x (# of chickens per
year per person who eats chicken) x 10 years = (# of chickens per decade)

2000: (281,421,906)x(.25)x(12)x10 = (8,442,657,180)
1990: (248,709,873)x(.25)x(12)x10 = (7,461,296,190)
1980: (226,542,199)x(.25)x(12)x10 = (6,796,265,970)
1970: (203,302,031)x(.20)x(10)x10 = (4,066,040,620)
1960: (179,323,175)x(.15)x(6)x10 = (1,613,908,575)
1950: (151,325,798)x(.10)x(2)x10 = (302,651,596)
1940: (132,164,569)x(.10)x(2)x10 = (264,329,138)
1930: (123,202,624)x(.10)x(2)x10 = (246,405,248)
1920: (106,021,537)x(.10)x(2)x10 = (212,043,074)
1910: (92,228,496)x(.10)x(2)x10 = (184,456,992)

(Source for # of people in the U.S.:
http://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/hiscendata.html)
(Note that the Agricultural Statistics Data Base at
http://www.nass.usda.gov:81/ipedb/ gave a year 2000 annual total of
7,495,010,000 broiler chicks placed, so the decade estimates above are
probably underestimated, making Mike's existence even less likely.)

Add the # of chickens per decade and you get 29,590,054,583 decapitated
chickens in the 100 years from about 1905 to 2005. That's about 30 billion
chickens. Mike "The Headless Wonder Chicken" was roughly a 1 in 30 billion
chance occurrence. With odds like that, the statistician in me concludes
that a chicken cannot live without a head. But it did happen once, so the
mathematician in me concludes that a chicken can live without a
head. Therefore, in my mind, both mentors were completely correct in their
logic. They just used a different approach to answer the question: one
used deductive reasoning (statistics) and the other used a proof by
contradiction (flashpoint memory & mathematics)! Awesome question

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June 3, 2003
A: FROM MENTOR SHARON ROSH IN NC
To answer the question about a chicken living for months or years after
the head is cut off is a falsehood. The person who told you that was
incorrect. Sometimes chickens can run around for a few minutes after
decapitation, but then they die just like any of us would. All the
questions you posed about eating and nutrition after death show me that
you really thought about this and realize that such as statement is
false. Neat question. I hope the answer coincides with your sense that
it would be impossible for a chicken to live without its head!!
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A: FROM MENTER DESIREE BUTTER IN PA
Josie,
The story is true. It is the story of Mike the Headless Chicken. You can
read more about him at the following website:
http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/story.htm. He was able to live because
the brainstem was left intact which controls autonomic functions.