A statistical oddity of nature is on display in Licking.
A male Black Angus calf with two entire heads is mounted and available for public viewing at Hammond Feed. The rare specimen –– the odds are about 1-in-400 million –– was born in late 2014 on the property of an Amish family northwest of Licking. It was eventually mounted by Josh Kinder, owner of Big Piney Taxidermy, also of Licking.
It went on display last Thursday.
“This is so unusual, and I thought it would be neat for people to see,” store owner Mike Hammond said. “I’m sure a lot of kids will enjoy it.”
The rare condition that leads to animals (or humans) being born with two heads is known as polycephaly. Cows that have it are almost always stillborn.
“A lot of times they’ll have two faces, and it’s even more rare for them to have two complete separate heads and four ears like this one,” Kinder said.
Hammond said the bizarre calf was born on land owned by a frequent customer who has only about a dozen head of cattle. It breathed only a few times. Its mother died during the birth.
Mounted two-headed calves are, of course, extremely rare. Hammond said the “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” attraction in Branson has a two-headed Holstein on display.
Kinder has done taxidermy for 10 years and had to get a bit more creative than usual on this project.
“I’ve never come across anything like this – other than in books,” he said. “There’s a basic mannequin available, but I pretty much had to piece things together to get this done. To get it to look right meant a lot of measuring and cutting and gluing and redoing.”
Kinder is working with the strange double-cow’s skull, with the intention of displaying it, too.
“It’s a tricky deal,” he said. “It’s definitely different than working on deer.”