The farmers are bottle feeding the calves to ensure their survival
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
A new Minnesota mother is going to have her hands – or hooves – full with her new bundles of joy.
A cow on a Deb and Chuck Beldo’s Sebeka, Minn. farm gave birth to four calves – two males and two females – on May 24.
The Beldo family knew the cow was pregnant but didn’t think she was carrying that many calves.
“Twins are fairly common,” Jamie Belz, the Beldos’ daughter, told MPR News on Sunday. “Actually, (a cow on the farm) had a set of twins born earlier this year, but unfortunately they came during the crazy cold weather we had in April and they didn’t make it.”
The Beldos are currently bottle feeding the calves every five hours until they’re ready to be reunited with their mother.
“We didn’t feel like they were strong enough to be put back with her,” Deb told Fox 9 on Sunday. “We tried to put one back with her the following day but they’re just not big enough. So, we ended up with four bottle babies.”
What are the odds?
The chances of a cow having quadruplets are incredibly slim.
The veterinary textbook Veterinary Obstetrics and Genital Diseases estimates the likelihood of a cow delivering four calves at once is about one in 700,000.
The odds of delivering four calves of the same sex is around one in 11.2 million, and the chances of having all four calves of the same sex survive is about one in 179.2 million, the textbook says.
Deb and Chuck Beldo bottle feed the newborn calves
Jamie Belz/Facebook photo