First there was the sideshow owner who gave his diving pig BIG RED mouth to mouth after a horrible encounter with an electrified tank of water, and now this.

Yet another contender for a story born to be accompanied by banjo music. The accompanying related story about "Mike the headless chicken" reminds me of the tune by the late great Warren Zevon entitled "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner". Sort of. I wonder if Warren was inspired to write his song by the saga of Mike. That answer is probably best lost to history.

I have every confidence that A.P. will investigate and discover the back line story regarding this incident.

Man Saves Chicken With Mouth-to-Beak
April 17, 2005 9:54 PM EDT

COLLBRAN, Colo. - First there was Mike the Headless Chicken, a rooster that survived for 18 months after having its head lopped off with an ax. Now, western Colorado has a new chicken survival story, this one involving a man who claims he saved his fowl by giving it mouth-to-beak resuscitation.

Uegene Safken says one of the chickens in his young flock had gotten into a tub of water in the yard last week and appeared to have died.

Safken said he first swung the chicken by the feet to revive it. When that failed, he continued swinging and blowing into its beak.

"Then one eye opened. I thought it was an involuntary response," Safken said. The chicken's beak opened a little wider, and Safken started yelling at it: "You're too young to die!"

"Every time I'd yell at him, he'd chirp," Safken said.

Mike the Headless Chicken survived a beheading in 1945 in Fruita, Colo. Afterward, Mike could go through the motions of pecking for food, and when he tried to crow, a gurgle came out. His owner put feed and water directly into Mike's gullet with an eyedropper.

Scientists examined the chicken and theorized Mike had enough of a brain stem left to live headless. He was a popular attraction until he choked to death on a corn kernel.

Greg, is that the same fellow I saw hunched over a small human figure in the manicured front lawn of a small cottage outside of Denver? He appeared to be in distress and I could hear his whimpering and fretting over the small form as he bent his head, then raised it and counted to five then repeated the process. When he raised up the last time and shouted, "Won't somebody help me, doesn't anybody care?!" I could see that he was trying to revive a garden gnome which was non-responsive and stiff as a rock.

I know I don't know much about music, but your post reminds me of that moving Roger Miller tune, "My Uncle Used to Love Me But She died". The bridge goes "...does a chicken have lips, does a rattlesnake have hips...".

August 2002:Beer drinking goat castrated by jealous neighbor! Clay Henry III, beer drinking goat and mayor of the west Texas border town of Lajitas, was attacked by local Jim Bob Hargrove and castrated. Hargrove committed the heinous deed after seeing the goat drinking beer on a Sunday, when the area's blue laws prevent the sale of alcohol to humans. Tourists had apparently been feeding Clay Henry his usual staple of Lone Star longnecks, and Hargrove threatened to castrate the goat, according to eyewitnesses. The mayor was found lying next to his testicles on Monday, Aug. 5. Ranchers sutured his wounds, and Clay was up slugging down cold ones soon after. Hargrove faces charges of animal cruelty.

To update: I believe that tweleve good men and true of Brewster Co. eventually acquited the heinous Hargrove of animal cruelty. The moral of the story: proceed with caution in Lajitas!