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The Song Challenge:   That's One Scrappy Rooster! -- For 18 months in the 1940s, it seemed as if Mike the headless chicken might be immortal.   Now he's being immortalized in a 4-foot metal sculpture to be stuck in a planter on a downtown corner in his hometown of Fruita, Colorado.   The 300-pound replica of Mike was made using ax heads and hay-rake teeth, along with sickle blades and other cutting objects.   "I made him proud-looking and cocky," said the artist, Lyle Nichols, a Fruita native.   The rooster belonged to Fruita farmer Lloyd Olsen, who planned to put Mike into the cooking pot and lopped off his head at the base of the skull to leave as much of the tasty neck as possible.   But Mike just fluffed up his feathers -- although he could only go through the motions of pecking for food, and when he tried to crow, a gurgle came out.   But he was still alive the next morning.   Olsen started putting feed and water directly into Mike's gullet with an eyedropper.   Mike lived for 18 months, making it into Life magazine and the Guinness Book of World Records, and was a popular attraction until he choked to death on a corn kernel in an Arizona motel while on tour.   Fruita officials dug up his story last spring when they were looking for something besides pioneers to focus on for Colorado Heritage Week.   That led to the first Mike the Headless Chicken Festival.   In addition to food (fried chicken) and music, this year's festival is scheduled to feature "The Run Like A Chicken With Your Head Cut Off 5K."

Fruita Roosta' by Spider Tom

The fowl yard, screamed in silence,
The hens all dressed in black,
Cause Mick their favourite rooster,
Was heading for the sack,
Farmer slept in once too often,
Mick's neck was for the chop,
With twenty hens to wait upon,
Mick couldn't sleep enough.

The axeman was Lloyd Olsen,
He was a Fruita farmer,
Fruita was a country town,
Down in Colorada',
Lloyd, a thorough killer,
Stretched the rooster's neck,
Straight across the chopping-block,
Mick, a nervous wreck.

The angry axe it glistened,
In the mourning sun,
If anything, be merciful,
The axe was not the one,
So little time to crow, thought Mick,
So little time to live,
The sharp blade kissed, the chopping-block,
Mick felt his old neck give.

The red blood washed his feather down,
His work-wings gave a flap,
Soon enough, he'd be picked up,
And plucked upon a lap,
Soon enough to breath his last,
Soon enough to die,
And he could only gurgle,
He couldn't even cry.

Death comes in creeping seconds,
God lets you stretch, your last,
If death would be more merciful,
It would come on fast,
Last moments stretched to minutes,
The farmer held his breath,
Was he looking at a miracle,
Was this some "voodoo-fest?"

Lloyd reached ,and scooped the wounded bird,
And clutched him, to his chest,
Would he ever see another one,
So tough to be the best?
No beak to feed, just tube to breath,
No sight, no taste, what brain.
Yet still the chicken, lingered on,
The farmer shared his pain.

So easy you can turn your back,
So easy when it's quick,
Twixt' life and death a moment,
Won't make a conscience prick,
Next, Olsen with an eyedropper,
Feeds Mick food through the neck,
And charges 'round the country fairs,
To show, the nervous Mick.

Lloyd Olsen lived infamously,
The people always paid,
To look upon this headless bird,
They'd look then drift away,
Thinking those immortal thoughts,
That men so love to breed,
But Mick the rooster, up and died,
Choking on a seed.

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