10 year old cow delivers FIVE healthy calves

A farmer from Hinstock, Shropshire has seen something incredibly rare happen on his farm.  On Saturday July 23rd one of his more mature suckler cows gave birth to five living calves.  All survived, are in good health and developing well.

The farmer, Don Constable, works with race horses primarily, but also runs a small farm, “I have been keeping suckler cows for more than 20 years and have never seen anything like this, says Don We have had some twins born here before, I was convinced that it would be twins in this case as mum was so big. The first 3 were born and it was then the vet turned to me and said you’re not going to believe this but there are still 2 more to come! It was unbelievable, a really amazing and magical moment.”

“My daughter has been online to try and find out if this has happened before, as far as we can see it has, in Mexico, but never in the UK!”

Howard Brown is a ruminant sales specialist from leading rural supplier Countrywide, with who Don is a store account holder. “Don is one of our leading customers and called the team at his local store in Market Drayton to tell us the good news. I have spoken to many of my colleagues during the last week and we have never seen anything like this, some of us have seen 3 born with low survival rates, but never 5.”

The cow is a Belgian Blue cross, AI’d with a Limousin straw. The farm uses Countrywide custom formulation minerals in feed  to meet the requirements of the animals.