September 13, 2019
Matt Alexander, 38, spotted the unusual-looking black angus calf at a livestock auction a few weeks ago, and sent photos to his fiancée, Maghin Davis, 29. Davis responded immediately that she wanted to rescue the calf, which had been separated from its mother and would otherwise not survive.
“Elsie” as her new owners named her, had been born with a quite well-formed fifth leg – growing out of her head! Polymelia is the medical term for a rare birth defect in which an animal or human is born with extra limbs.
“No one was going to bid on her and her mom wasn’t there, so she won’t survive. She had just been born and she was so helpless, we couldn’t let her die,” Davis explains. The calf’s mother was also tracked down, and the re-united mother and daughter now live on the couple’s Hathaway, LA farm.
Surgical removal of the extra leg is being considered as an option, but there are risks. “We want to do what’s best for Elsie. . . . It’s on her head so there’s a risk of infection,” Davis said. “At the moment it’s not inhibiting her: it’s really just a cosmetic thing, and she doesn’t care about that.”
Davis called Elsie “a little spitfire.” “She has a very curious personality: she likes to explore; she’s brave; she wants to be out and about and roaming; she’s so spunky and cute,” she said. “She’s thriving big time.”
(Source: FoxNews)
