A cow in Northeast Texas gives birth to four healthy calves, who are called Eeny, Meeny, Miny, and Moo.
On Monday, Jimmy Barling said DNA testing would be conducted on tissue samples from the four calves to prove that they were indeed all born to the same mother.
Three of the calves were male, and the fourth was a female.
“We knew she was pregnant, but we didn’t know she was going to do this,” the 76-year-old Barling said. “This was a shock. This blew our minds.”
Outside of DeKalb, near the Arkansas and Oklahoma borders, Dora Rumsey-Barling, Barling’s wife, owns the couple’s 20 or so cattle.
According to Barling, the four black calves were named “Eeny, Meeny, Miny, and Moo” by Rumsey-Barling’s granddaughter.
The local veterinarian Mike Baird said the births were “extremely rare.”
Four healthy calves born to a single cow is a 1 in 11.2 million long shot, he said.
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Baird is familiar with the family and is almost positive that all four calves originated from the same cow, rather than another cow in the area giving birth to one or two and then moving on, giving the appearance that all four came from the Barlings’ cow.
“In the interest of science and the animal world, it’s one of those things that need to be verified beyond a shadow of a doubt,” he said.
The couple went to check on the cow when they heard buzzards overhead and ended up staying to witness as she gave birth to her fourth calf.
The two have to rely on their neighbors to help feed their four calves because the mother cow can’t handle it.
While Moo has stayed with her mother, Eeny, Meeny, and Miny are under the care of two different people.
Meeny weighs in at around 25 pounds, making him the lightest of the calves.
The birth weight of a healthy calf is around 75 pounds. Some of the quadruplets have also had trouble standing.
