On Monday, Jimmy Barling said DNA testing would be conducted on tissue samples from the four calves to prove that they were indeed all born to the same mother.

Three of the calves were male, and the fourth was a female.

“We knew she was pregnant, but we didn’t know she was going to do this,” the 76-year-old Barling said. “This was a shock. This blew our minds.”

Outside of DeKalb, near the Arkansas and Oklahoma borders, Barling’s wife, Dora Rumsey-Barling, owns the couple’s 20 or so cattle.

According to Barling, the four black calves were given the names “Eeny, Meeny, Miny, and Moo” by Rumsey-Barling’s granddaughter.

According to local veterinarian Mike Baird, the births were “extremely rare.”

Four healthy calves born to a single cow is a 1 in 11.2 million long shot, he said.

Baird is familiar with the family and is almost positive that all four calves originated from the same cow, rather than another cow in the area giving birth to one or two and then moving on, giving the appearance that all four came from the Barlings’ cow.

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