COLUMBUS, Ohio – Last month, Dr. Michelle Carman, a farm animal medicine and surgery resident at Ohio State University’s Veterinary Medical Center delivered triplet calves for an Ohio farm family.

Twins are not uncommon in both beef and dairy cattle, according to the medical center, based in Dublin, but the odds of a cow having triplets are around 1 in 10,000.

“All three were females and all weighed 47 pounds,” said Dr. Jeffrey Lakritz, veterinary faculty member at OSU’s Hospital for Farm Animals. “They are remarkably have similar color patterns.”

The odds of the triplets all being female are 1 in 100,000.

“Since the cow was implanted with one embryo and delivered triplets tells us that the embryo split twice, which is rare,” Lakritz said.

To put this into perspective, the chances of finding a four-leaf clover on the first try is about 1 in 10,000, while the chances of holding the winning Powerball ticket are 1 in 175 million.

“When the cow went into labor, the owners could feel the tail of a calf, meaning the calf was coming out backward in a breech position,” Carman said. “That’s when they decided to bring her here at Ohio State.”

When Carman and co-worker, Dr. Joe Lozier, examined her, they were able to correct and pull the first calf as well as the second calf. While checking for any trauma to the uterus and birth canal, the presence of another calf was identified.

While triplets are very rare, they are not unheard of. In May 2021, at the Amboy, Ill., farm of Todd and Cynthia Carlson, a red Angus gave birth to triplets (one female, two males).

Todd’s family has been raising cattle on the farm since the 1970s. In all those years, he can only think of three times the farm’s cows ever had twins.

In 2020, rare triplet bull calves were born on the Uno, Ky., farm owned by Marty and Sharon Hester, while in 2018, a cow in Pulaski County, Ky., had a rare set of bull triplets.

In 2017, Simmental heifer triplets were born on the cattle farm of Bill and Bonnie Wietlisbach, of Decatur County, Ind. Ten years ago, on the Clark County, Ohio, farm of Rita Dornon, a 6-year-old cow gave birth to triplets (two males, one female).

In 2011, a cow on the Deer Creek farm of Joe Kistler, in Carroll County, Ind., gave birth to triplets. Kistler said the cow had given birth to twins in the past. Four years earlier, a Chi Angus gave birth to triplets at the Morehead Cattle Farm in Madison County, Ind.