Lois and Arnold Bredewater are in steer heaven since their cow Bessie delivered her ninth set of twins.
Bessie, a Chianina crossbred beef cow, first gave birth in 1985 to a single calf. From then on, as Bart Simpson would say, it was Cowabunga!"When she had two sets of twins, we thought, `This is neat,' " said Lois Bredewater, 62. "And then she had three. And then she had four. Pretty soon, people were gambling on it."
About 1 of every 200 births is twins, according to San Antonio Livestock Exhibition chairman Professor Bill Turner. Once a cow has twins, odds are it will have more.
But when the twins are different genders, the female calf usually is sterile. Eight of Bessie's nine sets have been a heifer and a bull calf, so they were destined from birth for the butcher.
Mothers of twin calves are often unable to produce enough milk. But in Bessie's case, that has not been a problem, Lois Bredewater said.
Bessie, it seems, is just following in the family tradition. Her owner, a retired Air Force colonel, is an identical twin. And the Bredewater boys married twins.
The rancher has no scrapbook of Bessie's offspring, because he never expected the twins streak to continue.