Not twins, but full brothers, says Sally Yearbury, of her two baby bulls that resulted from two embryos being put into one cow.

When is a twin, not a twin?

Dolly Doo is a seven-year-old Friesian cross cow owned by Sally Yearbury of Ploughbright Lowlines at Cambridge in New Zealand's Waikato. On the 30th June Dolly gave birth to two lovely full term Australian Lowline bull calves.
'Duty' weighed 29 kg and 'Dellboy 27k kg.

The calves were implanted as embryos last spring. When doing the implant work Sally was concerned there would not be enough recipients ready to take embryos on the day so left Dolly, the roomiest recipient to be the last cow implanted. Sure enough the end arrived with two embryos left , both of which went to Dolly who is a big opened framed cow, who Sally knew could cope with two Lowline calves.

Once she realised that Dolly had kept the pregnancy Sally kept an eye on her during the season. During the last three months her feed intake was kept right up. Nearing her due date Dolly was watched closely. But on a nice fine morning after a week of cold winter weather Sally went out and there the family were all delivered, safe and sound.

Dolly Doo is no new comer to calves. From her first calving as a heifer she has regularly, including her own calf, reared up to twelves calves a year. The calves have been fed once-a-day in the morning, and not run with her. Four teats, three batches of four calves a season! In return she has always been extremely well cared for and gets a scratch each morning! This calving she will have a change and will be able to have her two Lowline calves running with her plus another beef calf to help with the milk supply. "The reason being," says Sally " I am past the stage of feeding calves every day having done so for so many years.

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