Jenna Blaschuck was surprised when a Hereford cow in her family’s 500-head commercial herd gave birth to a Hereford heifer, and then to another heifer that was Black Angus.
“We’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Blaschuck. “We were watching her and if we wouldn’t have been watching her so closely, we would never have believed it.”
This was the third set of twins born so far this spring on the Walter Blaschuck cattle operation near Chaplin, Sask., where there are now about 50 new calves on the ground.
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Jenna noticed something unusual last week when she spotted a very long water bag expelled when the cow began calving.
After keeping a close eye on it, she and her father were pleased to see the Hereford had given birth to a red heifer. When they returned with the calf sled to take the pair to the barn, another foot was protruding.
“We went back out maybe five or 10 minutes later, there was another calf there and it was a black one. Dad said, ‘if I wouldn’t have seen it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it’, ” Jenna said.
Dr. John Campbell, veterinarian and professor at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon, said the phenomenon of twins with different sires is called heteropaternal twinning. It can occur when the cow ovulates more than one egg and is then bred by more than one bull.
Nevertheless, such cases are rare, Campbell said. Scientific literature indicates approximately 1.7 out of every 10,000 births will be heteropaternal twins.
“However, this is obviously dependent on management factors and having cows with natural breeding opportunities in multiple bull pastures is a prerequisite,” said Campbell.
He noted a study in Ireland that found, in cases where parentage was tested on twin calves, slightly less than one percent had different sires.
Blaschuck said she and her father would have suspected mismothering, which can fairly easily occur with twins, had they not been monitoring the cow. As it is, she considered it “very special” to have occurred on their ranch this year.
