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The chicken that lived for 18 months without a head
- danso 11y agoI skimmed around Google...what's the next longest record for a chicken? The OP mentions rumors of scientists trying to repeat the phenomenon though none apparently successful...unless Mike had a extraordinarily unique anatomy...wouldn't this kind of thing been seen before, among all the billions of chickens killed since then? (Obviously, many billions more are killed every year, but probably not with an ax). Doing it as a science experiment seems cruel...but not nearly as seemingly cruel as many other kinds of animal experiments.
- drjackal 11y agoIf it is possible to be alive without a brain, then if you think about it that explains Donald Trump.
- enlightenedfool 11y agoI know in general there's no room for pity when it comes to animals for food. But just felt sad reading this, especially the attempts to replicate Mike's case. It frustrates me that while we make a strong legal case against cruelty towards animals, we don't give a thought about those animals that are turned to food for humans. Of course, you could argue why harm vegetables/plants for food, but I guess animals suffer much more because of higher consciousness.
- venomsnake 11y agoActually we give a lot of thoughts. There are both care and butchering standards - sadly the later, as usual for religious people and law, is opt in. There are exceptions for kosher and halal. In Europe the animal well being is also codified into laws and regulation. And a lot of small farms do care about their chickens and livestock.
- ching_wow_ka 11y agoI skimmed through the article, but I couldn't find anything about how the chicken was fed.
- Someone1234 11y agoThis would definitely be classed as animal abuse today. To quote the article: > Reports indicate that Mike's beak, face, eyes and an ear were removed with the hatchet blow. But Smulders estimates that up to 80% of his brain by mass - and almost everything that controls the chicken's body, including heart rate, breathing, hunger and digestion - remained untouched. So in effect the chicken was still alive and potentially suffering the whole 18 months. Lovely.
- vijayr 11y agoConsidering that we literally grind male chicks alive in factories, pump animals with a ton of chemicals to increase their weight and so on...not sure if anyone would think it is animal abuse even today
- rev_bird 11y agoI've seen those video clips: It's a horrifying glimpse at the consequences of our desire for low-cost meat products, and one of the (many) contributing reasons that I'm almost entirely vegetarian these days. But I've also thought about that grinder a lot: I'm not sure there's a lot of suffering involved -- that grinder thing is moving fast, and those chicks go from "la la I'm a baby chicken" to a red mist in, I'd guess, less than half a second. I reflexively object to the practice, but I honestly can't come up with another way of getting that done if it's necessary to do. Anyway, if I had the choice of being ground up nearly instantaneously or to have the front half of my skull removed with a hatchet, I'd have to pick the grinder.
- corin_ 11y agoI'm know nothing about the subject, and maybe the current way is perfect in its speed, but "I honestly can't come up with another way of getting that done if it's necessary to do" - using drugs to knock them out before killing them is surely an obvious idea, even if it might not (I've no idea) be practical for other reasons
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- proactivesvcs 11y agoI read about this years ago on http://www.damninteresting.com/superflous-brain/ http://www.damninteresting.com/superflous-brain/ which is one of the most accurate domain names on the Internet. I wonder what'd happen with a similar experiment on Hans the Counting Horse?
- monopolemagnet 11y agoYup. And here's 7 more damn awesome articles: 1. http://www.damninteresting.com/the-birth-control-of-yesteryear/ http://www.damninteresting.com/the-birth-control-of-yesterye... 2. http://www.damninteresting.com/the-clockmaker/ http://www.damninteresting.com/the-clockmaker/ 3. http://www.damninteresting.com/the-derelict/ http://www.damninteresting.com/the-derelict/ 4. http://www.damninteresting.com/the-ethyl-poisoned-earth/ http://www.damninteresting.com/the-ethyl-poisoned-earth/ 5. http://www.damninteresting.com/the-zero-armed-bandit/ http://www.damninteresting.com/the-zero-armed-bandit/ 6. http://www.damninteresting.com/spies-on-the-roof-of-the-world/ http://www.damninteresting.com/spies-on-the-roof-of-the-worl... 7. http://www.damninteresting.com/undark-and-the-radium-girls/ http://www.damninteresting.com/undark-and-the-radium-girls/ Full archive: http://www.damninteresting.com/archives/ http://www.damninteresting.com/archives/