THE triplet Brahman heifers that defied the odds when they were all born happy and healthy at a Baralaba stud in October are continuing to prove the mathematicians wrong.
Almost five months later, the Varossa Brahman stud heifers, which defied the one-in-400,000 odds when they were born the same gender and healthy, are now defying million-to-one odds just by being alive.
Out of a seven-year-old cow, the calves were the product of natural mating and impressively, were naturally calved.
Stud principal BJ Thomas said the heifers' story had captured the imagination of a lot of people in Queensland agriculture.
"Honestly, the amount of people who have messaged me or asked me about the girls when they see me around is pretty remarkable," Mr Thomas said.
"Just the other day, I was selling some commercial cattle at Gracemere and a few people asked me how they were getting on.
"I think it's just one of those things you don't hear about too often, especially the fact they are thriving too, which we were working out the other day is something like a million-to-one odds."
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As for the heifers' mother, Mr Thomas said the calves needed some early intervention, but they had largely succeeded thanks to their mum.
"We did have to give them some attention to the calves in the early days, because their mum just needed a little bit of help," he said.
"Other than that though, all four of them have been really well and mum has been feeding all three of them, which is just awesome.
"It would be fair to say we were a little bit worried that she might reject one or maybe even two of them, mostly because that isn't uncommon with twins, but she has just got on with it.
"Honestly, she is a super mum."
Mr Thomas, who took the reins as stud principal in 2009 after running his own stud, said the calves did not share the same genetic traits.
"The first one looks a bit different to the other two, which leads me to think they second and third calves are identical twins," he said.
"The first one was horned while the other two were polled, which was a bit of a bonus.
"The sire is a PH bull, while their mum was horned, so it makes it pretty interesting to see how it panned out."
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Billy Jupp
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
