Armagh farmer, Kyle McCall, enjoyed a career highlight and momentous occasion this week, when one of his Charolais cows gave birth to triplets.
The triplets are a first for McCall (52), a specialist in the production of Culard Charolais weanlings, who has been farming in Markethill, Redrock, Co. Armagh since he left agriculture college in Loughry in his late teens.
The birth reportedly came as a total surprise to the veteran farmer, who only discovered the cow was expecting triplets when he was in the process of delivering them.
Typically, McCall would scan his cows during gestation to assess pregnancy developments, however, this year, for the first time in years, McCall did not find the time to do so due to an increased workload.
McCall told Agriland “This year, because we’ve been working mad, I just never found the time to get the cows scanned and it’s the first time in years that I didn’t.
“I had no idea that cow was carrying triplets. Up to a fortnight ago, I would have said she just looked like a normal cow coming to calf, carrying one calf, you know, she looked a bit heavy, but she didn’t look extremely heavy.
“But coming up to the calving, I did notice that cow was being very careful of herself when rising and laying down, and I thought to myself that she might be carrying twins, so I put her out in an isolation pen and started to give her a bit of extra feeding just in case, but I wasn’t certain.”
McCall attended a farm meeting the night of the lucky feat, hosted by a local vet, who spoke of the unusually high rate of large calves born this year, which left the farmer fearing that a calf weighing more than 100kg might be en route, instead of a multitude.
The triplets, two heifers and one bull, eventually arrived in the early hours of February 12, following what McCall admitted, was a challenging calving.
At one stage, after nearly an hour spent untangling limbs to no avail, McCall considered calling a vet to come to the rescue, but decided to persevere without one in the end.
“I put in quite a while at it in fairness and I’ve calved a lot of cows over the year, but I was nearly dead at one stage. I got a head up but then I couldn’t get the two legs belonging to that head.
“After a wee while, my son arrived and with his help, I was able to narrow it down to which two legs belonged to which head.
“I had to push the first calf back in and hold it back while he pulled out the second, but there was no room because they were both in the birthing canal at the same time.
“It took an hour to get the first two calves out of her, but they were two great strong calves, a bull and a heifer, and I was delighted, it was a super job and she did very well,” he said.
Triplets
However, it wasn’t until the two calves were born, did McCall discover a third was on the way.
He noticed the cow bled more than usual and fearing she might have experienced a tear giving birth to the calves, he attempted to locate the source of the blood.
“I was concerned about this bit of blood, so I put on a clean glove and swept around the calf bed to make sure there were no tears. I was sweeping around for a third time and I couldn’t find anything, but I hit a foot.
“I was in total shock, I said, ‘it can’t be a third’. Like if they were, twins, you’d say they were really good twins, they were by no means small or delicate, they weren’t premature either, they were delivered to full term,” McCall exclaimed.
McCall was proud to report that all three calves, who have since been named Crazy, Maisy and Daisy, as well as the cow, were “fit and healthy”, and required no extra care or attention.
The triplets have excesses of energy and have been tearing around their mother in their pen, ever since, McCall admitted.
The birth of triplets is understood to be as rare as 1/100,000 births in some cases, with even greater odds reported for the birth of three live calves to term.
McCall’s trojan efforts were observed by his wife and her colleagues at the local nursing home, who were “up to high doe” watching the birth of the triplets live from the calving camera via his wife’s phone.
“I think the staff were as excited as I was, It’s an infectious kind of joy, it’d give you a great boost,” he explained.
McCall admitted he has not had much time to celebrate the fortunate occurrence, as he is in the middle of the calving season, but has taken plenty of photos to commemorate the extraordinary occasion.
