Perrydale’s bovine: ‘She’s a wonderful, laid-back cow’
A cow at York Township’s Perrydell farm recently had triplets, a rare feat. But the fertile cow was outdone by a goat with quints some years ago. Background posts: Other cow stories: Boys, she’s a Confederate cow and The steer obeyed the traffic rules
Tom Perry of York Township’s Perrydell Farms said the mother of triplet calves is normally a laid-back cow. But her accomplishment landed in the 1 in 105,000 category.
Unfortunately, her production did not meet the output of a Craley goat in 1995.
Anthony “John” and Jockquin Eveler’s Alpine goat, named Patches, delivered five healthy, non-identical kids, a feat considered “pretty unusual.”
Those quints brought the Eveler family’s total of goats to 36.
The Evelers expected to seek a license to sell milk from their goats.
“It makes great ice cream and good cheese,” Jockquin Eveler said.
But back to Perrydell’s triplets. To learn about an opportunity to visit them, see the following York Daily Record story, orginally headlined “A Cow Wow:” …
Good things are coming in threes at Perrydell Farm Dairy at 90 Indian Rock Dam Road.
Cow No. 129 recently gave birth to triplets: two heifers and one bull. This is her second birth, said Tom Perry, who owns the York Township farm and dairy in partnership with his brothers Greg and Chip Perry.
“She’s a wonderful, laid-back cow, and for some reason she had three calves on Monday morning,” Tom Perry said.
It is rare for a cow to give birth to triplets. There is a 1 in 105,000 chance of it occurring, Tom Perry said, and it happened in York County with little fanfare and little attention.
Perry said that, according to information he found on the Internet, there were four triple births in a single month in North Dakota. A cow giving birth to three calves of the same sex happens once every 840,000 births, but one of those cows in North Dakota gave birth to three bull calves.
After a day or so of extra attention, it is back to work for Cow No. 129.
“We have to milk her. The calves are in pens one, two and three, and visitors are welcome to come and visit them,” Perry said.
The Perry brothers have a herd of 240 Holsteins – both cows and heifers – on their farm and are currently milking 130. They farm 171 acres, raising corn and hay as feed for their animals.
