When it comes to cattle, it is reasonable to expect that one in every 105,000 births will result in triplets.

Now those births might end with one or more of the calves dead, so having three healthy offspring cuts the odds in half or by two thirds.

Now consider two sets of healthy triplets from the same cow in three years and the numbers get difficult to calculate.

Yet that is exactly what has happened for Winnipegosis area producers Barry and Sandy Sliworsky, who have a cow which gave birth to her second set of triplets in two years this spring.

It is good genetics to have in your herd, but genetics is a funny game, Barry said.

“The first set was two girls and a boy and this time it’s the same way around. So unfortunately when it’s like that we couldn’t keep any as heifers because they’re not fertile,” he said. “If they were all female it would be okay. But in cattle, when you have twins with a boy and a girl, there’s only a 10 per cent or less chance that the female will be fertile. They’re called freemartins. They have no uterus or ovaries.”

That does not mean that the Sliworskys have missed out on the genetics entirely as last year, between the two sets of triplets, the cow gave birth to a single heifer which they kept in their herd.

And at eight years old there is a chance the cow will produce more fertile heifers for the Sliworskys, who sometimes keep cows up to 14 or 15 years of age.

“I would doubt that she’s going to make it that long just because she’s a raised 12 calves in seven years. So already she has raised as many calves as most cows ever raise in their life,” Sliworsky said. “But we’ll keep her around.”

Sliworsky is already drafting one of this year’s triplets onto another cow to give the mother a bit of a break.

“So she probably won’t have to raise all three anyways,” he said.

The energy she saves from not having to raise triplets will give the Sliworskys one or two more shots at retaining some of her genetics.

“I hope she doesn’t have triplets again because it might kill her. It’s hard for her to carry them. And then both times, they were born a bit early, like I think nine days this time and last time it was 11 days,” he said, adding it is recipe for problems. “So when they’re born early like that the placenta is not really mature. So it doesn’t release and then it’s it causes them to get very ill. She’s been on antibiotics right since the day after she had them and she still is infected, so that doesn’t help. But she’s moving around and eating and everything so, hopefully, she’ll be all right.”

Luckily for the animal, Sliworsky is a veterinarian. He intervened in each of the triplets births at the right time.

“Both times we thought there’d be something, some type of an issue, just because of how large her abdomen was and she was getting weaker and weaker,” he said. “So both times, as soon as there is any sign of labour, I fished them out. Otherwise if you leave a cow like that you’ll probably end up with three dead ones. They’re just too weak to push or go into a normal labour.”