A northern Minnesota family had a rare occurrence on the farm.
On May 24, 2018, Chuck and Deb Beldo, of Sebeka, won the bovine lottery. One of their cows fell pregnant, she had been a mother before. But the first two times she gave birth, it was to single calves.
As it so happened, the pregnant cow was about to have such an extremely rare birth.
“I’ve been around cows my whole life, and I’ve never seen anything like it before.” Deb Beldo said.
It’s not uncommon for cows to have twins so they knew there was a chance that she could have two calves. Never in their wildest dreams did Deb and Chuck expect what they would get instead.
The mama cow miraculously gave birth to quadruplets..
How rare are bovine quadruplets? Minnesota Public Radio and other media outlets cite stats from the veterinary textbook “Veterinary Obstetrics and Genital Diseases,” which estimates the chance of a cow delivering four calves is about 1 in 700,000.
It’s even rarer that the four calves would be born alive — 1 in 11.2 million.
As the cow went into labor, Deb stayed by her side, holding up fingers to Chuck for each newborn baby. At first, they thought twins, then they saw a third and a fourth calf, all jet black.
The calves all tiny, but appearing to be healthy, so far, were separated from their mama because they were too small to nurse properly. So the Beldos have been bottle-feeding them around the clock and Chuck jokingly told reporters they needed volunteers for the midnight feedings.
Congratulations to the new momma on the safe birth of her beautiful babies! Watch the video below to see the miracle quadruplets for yourself.
