Wally and Kerry LaClare raise cows on their farm near Melfort, and have seen hundreds of calves born. But last week when one of their cows gave birth, they witnessed something they've never seen before.
"Kerry came into the barn, and noticed the cow was straining a bit," said Wally LaClare. "I checked the cow and there was another calf, so we delivered it. We figured that was it, you never imagine triplets. When I came back in an hour later she was delivering her third,” he said.
The chances of a cow giving birth to triplets are so rare, about once in every 105,000 births, that a person has a better chance of hitting a hole in one.
Unfortunately, twins or triplet calves being born can often cause problems for both the mother and her babies.
"It puts a lot more stress on the animal," said Victor Kernaleguen, a veterinarian in Melfort. "A lot of time with multiple births, not all the calves will make it. It’s a longer labour, there’s complications where they get tangled up and can't come out right.”
Fortunately, LaClare said both the cow and her calves are doing just fine.
Realizing that three calves could overwhelm the cow, the LaClare's moved one calf to another cow that had recently given birth.
The family has 45 more cows ready to calve in the coming weeks, but chances of any more triplets are astronomically low, which is just as well with the LaClares.
