'A miracle': Cow gives birth to four calves at once, stunning Ontario farmer

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Ruthven farmer Abram Nelsen has been keeping cows for many years but has never witnessed the birth of quadruple calves before. The small rural community is located in southwestern Ontario.

That's why he can't stop being amazed that one of his Aberdeen Angus females gave birth to four healthy offspring in one recent day.

“For me this is a miracle. Yes, it is,” said Knelsen, a Mennonite whose native language is Low German.
“It was a surprise for me. I was the happiest guy on Earth.”

Mother cow with four calves. — An Aberdeen Angus cow and four calves she gave birth to on Abram Nelsen's farm in Ruthven. (Dalson Chen/CBC)

The highly unlikely birth took place on Tuesday. As of Wednesday afternoon, four newborns were capable of mooing for milk and wandering around Knelsen's property.

According to BBCwho reported a similar situation in the UK last year, the chance of cows having quadruplets is around one in 700,000.

But the chance of all four quadruplets being born alive and healthy is just one in 11 million.

“This doesn’t happen very often,” said Knelsen, who describes himself as a godly man. “Especially with four healthy calves.”

Cow farmer with newborn calves. — Abram Knelsen greets one of four calves recently born to the same cow on Knelsen's farm in Ruthven. (Dalson Chen/CBC)

Knelsen said there was absolutely no medical intervention on the mother cow or the bull Charlie that fathered the quadruplets. “Nothing like that happened,” he emphasized. “It was natural reproduction. It’s as if Nature gave it.”

The maternity group consists of three bulls and one heifer.

Aberdeen Angus bull. — Charlie, a Black Angus bull who sired quadruple calves at Abram Nelsen's Ruthven farm. (Dalson Chen/CBC)

Knelsen's sister-in-law, Christina Knelsen, said her family learned about the quadruplets through increasingly happy news from Abram in a group chat.

“He said, 'Look, we're having twins.' And we thought: this is amazing. This has never happened on the farm before,” Christina said.

“After half an hour he says: “I lied to you guys: there are three of them.” Everyone thought, “This is crazy.” And then, 10 minutes later, he was in seventh heaven. He says: “There are four of them.”

Mother cow feeds calf. — An Aberdeen Angus mother cow feeds one of the four calves she gave birth to at Abram Nelsen Farm in Ruthven. (Dalson Chen/CBC)

The unexpected arrival of the quadruplets brings Abram Nelsen's cow herd to seven, but he said he's not too worried about suddenly having four more mouths to feed.

Plus, Knelsen considers them a good investment: He raises his cows as beef cattle. A yearling Aberdeen Angus bull is worth several thousand dollars on the open market.

“Oh yeah, four at a time is a windfall,” Knelsen said.