A FARMER has defied the odds by delivering healthy triplet calves last week.

The calves were born last Wednesday at Upper Farm, in Milston, Salisbury Plain.

The mother, an eight-year-old Belgian Blue, gave birth to two bull calves and one female, which had been sired by a Limousin bull.

Farmer Tom Parsons said nobody expected for there to be three calves born at once.

“It’s very rare,” he said. “We were very surprised, we’ve never seen it on the farm.

“I had to pull them all out, they were quite tangled up.

“I had to calve the first two as they were both tangled up as they were trying to be born at the same time.

“Once they two were out and breathing well, I just decided to check for another one inside her and felt two feet.

“I thought, I hope I can get this one out alive, as well as it being born breech.

“We were very surprised to get them all out alive, as normally one won’t make it.”

But Mr Parsons said they are “strong calves” and “all happy” and that their mother is doing well.

Experts estimate that the odds of triplet calves being born could fall anywhere between one in 100,000 and one in a million.

In June 2015, the BBC reported that a cow delivering healthy triplets was at an estimated odds of 700,000 to one, when an Aberdeen Angus gave birth to three calves in Derbyshire.

Mr Parsons said the farm sees about three sets of twin calves a year, but has never had triplets before.

The trio will stay with their mother for a short while longer, but one will eventually need to be hand fed to ensure they each get enough milk.

“They are still on at the moment, but as they get bigger they will drink more and she might not produce enough for all of them,” he said.

They currently do not have names, and Mr Parsons said he was still thinking about what to call them.

The Parsons family have been farming in Milston for almost 100 years, and Mr Parsons works alongside his brother Richard, and their father Ian.

Upper Farm welcomes about 280 calves in the spring and 40 in the autumn each year.