We had quite the uproar a couple weeks ago on the farm. Before milking my dad went out to check on the cows before we brought them up into the holding pen. Well while I was finishing up washing the equipment he showed back up with some news.
He simply
said, “Deanna, we may have a problem… “
Meet Three
Teat.
Three Teat got
her name because she only has three functioning teats. She does have all four
teats but a few lactation's ago she had a bad case of Mastitis and unfortunately
it took over her whole front right quarter and we could never recover it. However,
we were fortunate enough to be able to keep her since it did not take over the
whole udder.
Miss Three
Teat had been a dry cow for the past couple months and we were keeping a close
watch on her since she was due any day. And she was HUGE.
Back to my
original story here, my dad finished that statement with, “Three Teat had her
calf but there are two calves out there and only Three Teat seems to have had
the calf.” I am thinking to myself, “So what? We had twins, awesome!” Until he told
me one was black and one was Holstein. UHHHH? WHAT?!
Now meet
Deany and Jenny.
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| Aren't they the cutest little babies?!? |
Deany and
Jenny were named by my sweet little 4 year old niece for us the day they were
born. The all black calf is Deany and the Holstein calf is Jenny. How lucky are
you to get two calves on the same day?
Well for us very lucky since we only
have 66 cows milking right now, we do not get a calf every day like the larger
dairy farms.
So, we have
one cow that calved and two calves. My immediate thoughts are they must be
cross bred calves no big deal. But they are NOT. The Holstein calf is a pure
bred Holstein and the black calve is a Holstein/Angus cross.
How in the
world did this happen?!?!?!
This was a
big first on our farm. It appears that Three Teat was a bit scandalous nine
months ago (283 days is the average gestation period). At the time we were
running a Holstein bull and the Angus bull with our Dairy Cows. She had been
bred by both bulls. You would assume whoever’s specimen got to her ovulated egg
would win the race, but she had a unique pregnancy. Three Teat cycled two eggs
during her ovulation period, during that time each bull successfully implanted
an egg each. During the growing period, each calf grew in the opposite uterine
horns. They did not share the same fluids and placentas that we could tell anyway.
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| Deany |
Some of you
may know about Free Martin Heifers. This is when you have a set of twins one is
a bull and one is a heifer. This unfortunately makes the heifer infertile and
given the name of a Free Martin heifer. We do not believe this is the case for
our new set of twins. Since they did not share the same fluids and such the
heifer should be fertile since it was as though Three Teat carried the calves separately, yet together. A great article here about Free-Martin heifers if you would like to know more!
 |
| Jenny |
We were all skeptical
at first that the all black calf really was that way until we looked closely at
to see if they were polled or not. Polled is a term for if they have horns or
not. Jenny has some bumps on her head and is not polled, while Deany is smooth and
a polled calf. We know for sure that they do not share the same father because
of this simple trait because the Polled trait is the dominant trait. Therefore,
if both bulls would have been polled each calf would have been too. However,
the Holstein bull is not a polled bull (I wish he was though!). Crazy huh?
Even crazier,
the twins were not born premature and both weighed around the normal weight for a newborn
calf. I was not kidding when I said she was HUGE, when she exited the milkbarn
she could barely fit through the doors.
The twins
are doing well and making great progress for twin calves. Momma is doing well
and back in the herd working full time again and everyone had a good time
telling friends and family about our little scandal! J
It really was a once in a life time experience and I have only read one other story about it happening, somewhat like our story!
Here is to you having an interesting day of your own!
The Milkmaid
