An Alberta farm family hopes a three-horned calf born on the farm will fly the family into the magical world of good times.
“We thought it might be the magic needed to save the farm from the drought,” said Kathy Galliford.
The Gallifords refer good-naturedly to the Simmental-cross yearling’s magic powers because of its unicorn-like appearance with the third horn growing out of its forehead, just like the fabled unicorn in fairy tales.
“Maybe they can clone it and we’ll have three-horn calves,” said Kathy’s husband, Allan, who said he wouldn’t sell the calf for triple the typical $800-$1,000 price for yearling heifer calves.
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One person told the family the calf could be worth $50,000 to the right buyer. That sale would help in a year when the family spent thousands of dollars for extra feed.
When the calf was born a year ago, it looked normal except for an odd looking cowlick in the centre of its forehead. As the calf grew, a ball of soft fluid appeared on its forehead and above it the start of a horn. The fluid lump and the horn grew along with calf. The third horn is larger than the other two, which are growing properly at the sides of its head.
“It’s perfectly normal other than that,” said Allan, who added the heifer is growing at the same rate as the other calves. He plans to breed it this year and keep it with the rest of the herd to possibly raise a new kind of animal.
A neighbour has offered to halter break the heifer and take it to shows as a curiosity, but that hasn’t yet been pursued. Allan said he considered having a veterinarian cut the fluid lump off the forehead to emphasize the extra horn, but changed his mind because the surgery would leave a visible scar and the horn might become suspect.
“I don’t want to fool around with it,” said Allan.
Kathy said makers of the TV and book series Ripley’s Believe It or Not in Florida weren’t interested when she told them about the calf, but staff told her they’d contact television studios to pass on the news.
“I don’t know if they want to make a movie out of it,” said Kathy, although she hasn’t heard back from any movie or television studios.
“I guess there’s not much call for a unicalf,” she said.
The unicalf’s mother recently gave birth to a normal looking bull calf.
Albert Barth, a veterinarian with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan said there might be a simple explanation for the extra horn.
Barth said the third horn is likely a congenital defect that occurred in the embryo stage and is not an inherited trait. He suspects the wrong kind of cells got left in the wrong location and created the third horn when the calf was developing.
“It’s unlikely it’s inherited, but an accident of development,” said Barth, who added third horns are rare, but not totally unheard of.
The other theory is that the third horn is a scur. Unlike horns, scurs aren’t attached to the bone of the head and remain as wiggly appendages.
Barth believes the soft sack of fluid under the forehead is likely a leakage from the brain caused by a soft spot in the skull. The mass of soft fluid is more common than a third horn.
Asked if Barth knew of a place interested in a unicorn calf he replied: “Fools and their money are soon parted. If they can find a fool, maybe.”
