The 2-Headed Calf

As a young boy, fourteen or fifteen, I had the opportunity to watch a veterinarian deliver a calf. The delivery went along the same line as my story except the calf was normal and alive. It was an extraordinary experience eclipsed only by my daughter's home birth. I took the memory and created this scene from a work in progress that probably will never see the light of day.

The 2-headed Calf—1969

The pregnant Guernsey milk cow belonging to JJ's father was overdue to drop her calf, and he sent for Dr. Veillion, the old veterinarian from Ellisonville. JJ called me to see if I wanted to see the cow deliver her calf. Although I lived in a farm community, I had never seen anything like that before. I was curious, so I jumped on my old Schwinn and peddled over to his father's farm about three miles down the Isaacton graveled road. I found them in Mr. Labbé's enormous and old cypress barn. I left my bike at the fence, climbed over the metal gate, and joined them. The barn was dark and smelled strongly of manure and hay. I stood next to JJ and watched as his father and Dr. Veillion examined the cow. In the next stall, a chicken perched on top of a poison drum and watched us, cocking her head sideways occasionally. The cow lay on her right side and seemed to be struggling to give birth. A yellowish sac hung from her back end. She lifted her head, eyed us with her dark eyes, and cried out.

"What's the matter with her?" I asked Dr. Veillion.

"That's her water sac hanging from her vulva," he answered. "She's having trouble pushing the calf out." He reached into his black medical bag. "Looks like I'll have to give Mother Nature a hand." He slid on a pair of enormous black rubber gloves that covered his hands and arms almost to his shoulders. Then he rubbed a lubricant over both gloves and entered the stall with the cow. She turned her head toward him, and he slowly made his way around until he stood behind her. "That's all right, baby," he soothed. "I'm just going to give you a little helping hand getting that baby out of there." The cow shook her enormous head and shifted a little. Dr. Veillion lifted her tail and slowly slid his right hand inside her vulva up past his elbow.

I glanced at JJ, and he grinned at me.

"You said you wanted to see," he whispered.

"The calf is coming out backwards," Dr. Veillion called out. "That's usually not a problem. I'm just going to reposition it a little until I can get his legs out. Jeb. There's no movement in there, so I suspect the calf might be dead." He glanced at Mr. Labbé. "I'm going to need some help pulling, so come in here and join me." After some tugging, a pair of small hooves and fetlocks appeared. Dr. Veillion grunted and pulled harder using both hands. JJ's father grabbed a hoof and helped."

"It's too slippery," Dr. Veillion said. "Get me a sturdy rope, and we'll pull it out that way."

Mr. Labbé nodded at JJ, who grabbed a rope and handed it to the old veterinarian. He secured it over the calf's fetlocks and again, just above the hooves. The two men pulled. The cow's stomach contracted as she pushed. After a few minutes, the calf's body appeared. The two pulled harder, and the rest of the calf dropped out in a spurt of blood, water, and mucous.

We stared in bewilderment at the little animal lying in the fresh hay.

It had two heads.

"Don't that beat all," Dr. Veillion said. "I've heard about this happening, but I've never seen it before."

"What the hell is it?" JJ's father asked.

"A calf," Dr. Veillion said. "The strangest damn calf I've ever seen."

"Is it alive?" I asked.

"Nope. It never had a chance."

The cow slowly licked her dead calf clean.

"Will my Guernsey be all right?" Mr. Labbé asked.

"She should be fine, Jeb. I'll stick around a bit until she delivers the placenta. It shouldn't take long."

"What am I going to do with a dead two-headed calf?"

The old veterinarian shrugged.

"Well, you could bury it, or you can have it stuffed. Some museum, or something like that, might want it."

Once the cow stood and delivered her placenta, Dr. Veillion left.

JJ's father placed the calf in a freezer and called Sonny Landrieu, a taxidermist he knew in Ellisonville. Three weeks later, he picked up the mount, and JJ called me over to see it. His father had set it into a scene that he created in the corner of his living room, a manger where the two-headed calf stood next to a bale of hay, an empty bucket, and a feed trough with grain in it. One head faced the viewer, it's dark glass eyes blank. The other head leaned over the trough.

"What do you think, boy?" Mr. Labbé asked.

I didn't know how to answer.

"Strange," I said, finally.

"Would you pay to see something like that?"

"I don't know," Mr. Labbé.

"Well, I got me a two-headed calf. Ain't no sense letting it rot in the ground when I can make money off him."

Later, he called the Ellisonville Gazette, and they sent a photographer over. The headline read, "Serpentville Farmer Preserves 2-Headed Calf." He placed a sign on the roadside next to his driveway. "SEE A TWO-HEADED CALF. $1.00 PER PERSON," it read.

He had visitors from as far off as Arkansas and Mississippi.