Scott Kolousek of Wessington Springs, South Dakota, USA, was busy birthing cowsfor calving season when he discovered something that had never been witnessed on hisfarm before.
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One cow was having troublegiving birth, the calf's head and arms were through but the little guy still wouldn't come out. Kolousek brought in a vet to check out the situation where a c-section revealed the strange truth...that the cow had two heads. Kolousek's wife Amber stated:
We didn't know the calf was unusual until the vet pulled it out during the c-section. We have never had another double-headed calf. We calve out about 700 calves each year and have done this for generations. My husband is the fifth generation on the farm...But this is a first for us.
Amber continued to state that nobody there had ever experienced this rare phenomenon before and it had left them all shocked:
We were all pretty shocked to see the double-headed calf when he came out. Everyone there, including the vet, had never seen anything like it in real life.
Sadly, thecalfdidn't survive the delivery.
Twins births are common amongst cows but conjoined twins are highly rare. The phenomenon occurs when two eggs don't entirely split during pregnancy and instead of twins, two beings become connected. Amber stated that even if the calf had survived it wouldn't have lived very long:
It is possible they may have survived a few days, but realistically they would never have been able to survive for very long. With only four legs total, it would have been pretty hard to get up and navigate around. But it would have been cool to have at least seen them try to live
