The Headless Chicken

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I was watching PBS early this morning and they were airing a show The History of Chickens. One story in particular touched me. It was about a farm family in Colorado around the turn of the last century. As was common back then many rural families slaughtered their own animals for food. It happened that the farmer decided to slaughter an old rooster one day for food. What happened is that after he had beheaded the rooster the rooster continued to act as though it still had its head. The rooster lived for a long time, and, according to the story, the farmer thought to make a great deal of money from exhibiting "Mike" all over since many people had heard about him and wished to see him. It turned out that after the rooster was exhibited in many cities he eventually died by choking to death. The farmer never struck it rich from showing the rooster and they had received a lot of hate mail from animal lovers who thought that they were being cruel by keeping the rooster alive for so long. I think that if something like this were to happen today it would be much worse for the farmer. How do you think he would be treated today?