A farmer was left "in awe" at his bad luck after a freaky two-headed mutant was born on his ranch - and it's not even the weirdest creature he's dealt with.
Matthew Hoheisel, 41, from Hillman, revealed his 13-year-old son, Westin, discovered the two-faced calf at the family farm in Minnesota, US, which had four eyes, two mouths and two noses.
The animal was found lying on the ground and, according to Matthew, he had never seen anything like it before.
He said: “I was in awe. I never saw anything like it before. My luck in the farming world is not very good – so it was kind of like ‘that’s about right, I would get something like this’.
“Even my sister is surprised I continue farming with the poor luck I have; calves getting sick, calves getting stepped on – they find a thousand ways to die around here.”
It’s not his first bizarre birth – a few years ago Matthew delivered had a calf born inside out, with its organs on the outside.
He continued: “Seven years ago I had another calf that developed in a horseshoe-shape inside the womb and its internal organs were actually on the outside of the body.
“When I was working on trying to get the calf out – because I knew she was calving – I thought the afterbirth was coming out but it was actually the intestines and stomach.”
The farmer confessed he has "bad luck" when it comes to animals on his farm as the two-headed calf was already dead when his 13-year-old son discovered the calf.
Matthew added: “I just have bad luck. I don’t know how to explain it."
The animal was a few weeks premature, and Mr Hoheisel thinks its smaller size may have helped its mother deliver unaided.
He said: “I believe it died while being born because she might’ve had troubles and who knows what could’ve happened in the few hours we weren’t in the barn with her.”
Matthew suspects the calf formed when an egg split – as if to form twins – but didn’t finish separating.
He said: “The way it looked, was as if the egg was starting to split and it got that far and just stopped.
“That’s the only thing I can come up with.”
Now the 41-year-old has sent the calf to a taxidermist, and is planning to mount its head as a novelty.
He said: “For us it’s more of a rarity and we plan on hanging on to it.
“It’s not something we’re gonna set on the kitchen table but it’s way cooler than a deer-head mount, I’ll say that."
