That was to Wellsford sheep and beef farmer Gordon Levet who provided a significant step in the University of Wisconsin-Madison geneticist’s ongoing work in the area of multiple births.
In the 1990s Levet saw what he describes as “a miserable cow with a miserable calf in tow” on his 600 hectare farm, Kikitangeo.
She was a two-year-old that because she wasn’t a regular cycler would never have been put to a bull.
But on closer inspection Levet found not just one live calf with her but two dead ones and an afterbirth.
Next year the cow, now called Treble, didn’t run with the bull again.
“But she had a huge gut on her,” Levet said.
“We knew she was going to have more than one calf again.”
No one was more surprised than he when she produced not one but three, live, normal sized calves.
“It blew me away,” Levet now 84, said.
He contacted Dr Bob Welch from Ruakura Research Centre who he had been in touch with about multiple births in his Romney stud flock.
Asking whether what had happened was a chance of one in 100,000 he was told, “No, it’s like winning Lotto.”
The next year he fed Treble up and put her to the bull but nothing happened.
However, the following year she was again pregnant with triplets.
That led Levet to make contact with Dr Chris Morris who had a high fertility herd at Flock House.
Trio, one of Treble’s second set of triplets, sired daughters calved from 2002 to 2008 with, more than 109 calvings, 15 sets of twins and six sets of triplets produced.
Kirkpatrick heard of Levet’s cow in 1997.
“There was a strong indication with the number of daughters who had twins and triplets that this was passed from generation to generation,” he said.
He visited Levet in 2004 then two years later was able to import some of Trio’s semen into the United States. The following year the first matings were done with 131 daughters born since.
“Their ovulation rate and the gene mapping we carried out didn’t correspond with the genes which were already identified,” Kirkpatrick said.
He and fellow researchers’ work indicated the gene itself wasn’t changed but the way in which it expressed itself was.
There was over-expression of an inhibitor labelled SMAD6. When egg follicles develop usually one will become dominant, inhibiting the development of other follicles, which die off.
“What is happening with SMAD6 is that the follicles are growing more slowly and while one may be dominant others keep developing,” he said.
Together they produce as much inhibitory substance as just one dominant follicle would, which presented an opportunity to create not only twin but bilateral pregnancies, where one follicle develops in each horn of the uterus. These have half the abortion rate of unilateral pregnancies where two follicles develop in the same horn.
“If we had more success with bilateral pregnancies we could improve beef productions efficiencies,” Kirkpatrick said.
His latest trial with the university’s 120-cow herd will see artificial insemination used on one third, embryo transfer on a further third and SMAD6-carrying semen on the remaining cows.
The first indication of the results will be seen in six months and research could be scaled up as early as next year.
With several stories every year coming to light of cows having multiple births he’s been on some wild goose chases.
One saw him get a cow from Alberta, Canada, which had produced quads after three sets of twins. But once at the university there was no evidence found that was the result of a repeatable genetic change.
“I’m delighted and thankful for Gordon’s foresight and intellectual curiousity,” he said.
After a cow had lost two of three triplets most farmers would have culled her from their herd.
Levet said he was delighted to be part of history and to have created work in another country, all from noticing a cow and her calf.
