Lots to read this week including: Craik Skating Carnival, Music Festival, Peewee Huskies provincials, Raiders Hoopla, and much more.

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DAVIDSON—Guinness World Records and Ripley’s Believe It or Not descended on Davidson last Monday, March 25 to verify the birth of a three-headed calf.

The tricephalic red angus cross calf was born at about 2 a.m. on Gordon Willner’s farm west of Davidson. It weighed 113 pounds.

It had been just another day on the farm during calving season before the epic event took place.

The cow was expected to calve anytime, so she was being monitored. As her time approached, it became apparent the birth was not progressing as it should.

Concerned, Willner put his arm inside the cow and felt one and then a second head.

Assuming it was a set of twins, he called for assistance.

Dr. Olaf Lipro, a large animal veterinary medicine resident at the University of Saskatchewan, answered the call for help.

He arrived at the farm and performed an examination, confirming there were indeed two heads. As the birth failed to progress, he decided to perform an emergency cesarean section.

This was Lipro’s first emergency C-section on a cow. He said he had performed one about three weeks ago on a pug that was unable to deliver her pug/Rottweiler pups.

“That went fairly well, so I thought getting these twins out of Gord’s cow should be a piece of cake,” Lipro said.

The cow was given a local anesthetic and then Lipro performed the procedure as outlined in his textbook. As he pulled one hind leg out, he grabbed the second hind leg and attached it to a calving chain and gave a mighty tug.

The calf wouldn’t budge.

He said he was surprised with how difficult it was to pull the calf out. The pug/Rottweiler pups came out easily, he noted.

With time and the cow’s life in the balance, they had to work quickly in order to get the calf out safely.

Lipro pulled on the chains with all his might. Finally the calf came free.

As he pulled it out of the uterus, he was shocked to discover what he thought was the first calf of a set of twins was in fact a three-headed calf.

“I was gob smacked, absolutely gob smacked,” Lipro said.

He said he’s heard of two-headed calves being born, but never a three-headed calf.

He said his first instinct was to take out his iPhone and post it on social media.

Then he remembered that he had a job to do.

He checked the calf’s airways—all three of them —to make sure the calf could breathe. One of the heads, the middle one, was struggling. Lipro said he had to clear the amniotic fluid from its nostrils. Some people use a piece of straw, but Lipro said he was taught a new method. He said he uses the straw from a Tim Hortons Iced Capp, inserts it into a nostril and sucks out the offending fluid. He said this is a technique other cattle producers may want to use in their cow-calf operations. He said a straw from a Twisted Sisters milkshake would also do in a pinch. He cautioned farmers from relying on this, however, because Twisted Sisters is still closed for the season.

After he had the calf breathing, he turned his attention to the cow. He cleaned her wound and stitched her up.

The calf was lying on the ground and having difficulty sucking a bottle so Lipro quickly tubed colostrum in through its left head.

“Then I thought, I might never get another chance to do this, so I tubed the right head too just to see if I could.”

The calf started sucking on its own, but had to be bottle fed for the first 48 hours as it struggled to its feet. By day three, it was able to stand. Nursing proved to be a challenge as all three heads butted with one another as they attempted to latch on.

Lipro said prognosis for the calf isn’t good. Two-headed calves rarely survive more than a few days, and a three-headed calf…Lipro said, “Only time will tell.”

This could be the first three-headed calf in history, although mention was made of one being born in 1893 in Illinois.

In the Jan. 13, 1893 edition of the Mattoon Gazette, out of Mattoon, Coles County, Illinois, the following report was published: “As we go to press a Lafayette farmer reports a three-headed calf born in the neighbourhood just southeast and a little north of the Monroe school house. He requests concealment of his name that the guilty party may be brought to justice.”…whatever that means.

Lipro said he did post a photo on Instagram, which is how Guinness World Records and Ripley’s ended up swooping into Davidson. He expressed regret for bringing all this attention to the Willner farm. “I let my ego get the better of me,” Lipro said. “As soon as I saw it was a tricephalic calf, I began thinking about how I could use this as my thesis topic when I do my PhD under Dr. Newt Scamander at vet med’s College of Large and Unusual Animals.”

DAVIDSON—Minor ball players hit the streets of Davidson Saturday, collecting bottles for batting practice.

They conducted a bottle drive to raise money to buy a batting cage.

The initiative is being spearheaded by Byron Dahl, coach of Davidson’s under-10 baseball team.

He wants to get a freestanding batting cage so Davidson’s minor baseball and softball teams may hone their skills.

He’s looking at a batting tunnel with fabric netting that is 70 feet long, 10 feet wide and 10 feet tall.

He said it could be set up in the rink so teams can train with it indoors in April until the weather and diamonds are fit for practicing outdoors.

The cage costs about $2,500.

He said he approached the Davidson Junior Athletic Association (JAA) for funding, but was advised that the JAA couldn’t justify this large expense for baseball when most of its revenues come from hockey and therefore, hockey fees would be subsidizing baseball. Davidson has seven minor ball teams this year.

To read the full story, you’ll need to subscribe. Phone 306-567-2047, email davidsonleader@sasktel.net or click the Subscribe button.

To read the paper, you’ll need to subscribe. Phone 306-567-2047, email davidsonleader@sasktel.net or click the Subscribe button. An electronic edition is available.

The Davidson Leader is available at these fine retailers: Davidson – Stedmans, Shell, Riverbend Co-op Gas Bar and Food Store, The Davidson Leader; Kenaston: KC Distributors.

DAVIDSON—People hoping to see work begin on safety improvements at Davidson’s busy Highway 11 intersections will have to wait at least another year.

Those spots were not among the projects highlighted in the provincial budget that was table last Wednesday in the provincial legislature.

The Saskatchewan government announced it was investing $20 million in safety improvements on provincial highways in 2019-2020. Of that, $13 million will be spent in the first year of a five-year $65 million enhanced intersection safety program and $7 million for a safety improvement program. The budget will see $706 million spent on Saskatchewan’s highways with $351 million of that for capital projects. There is $60 million earmarked to begin, continue or complete twinning and passing lanes.

The intersections on Highway 11 at Davidson are not included in this program.

Arm River MLA Greg Brkich said the Department of Highways is studying the intersections in conjunction with the Town  of Davidson to determine what to do.

He said this includes considering a request for a reduced speed limit zone on Highway 11.

“It’s on the radar screen,” Brkich said.

The 2019-2020  budget projects revenues of $15.03 billion, a 5.5 per cent increase from last year. This assumes revenues will be slightly higher than last year with the West Texas Intermediate oil price around $59.75 per barrel and potash prices at $221 per KCI (potassium chloride) tonne. Expenses are estimated at $14.99 billion, an increase of 2.6 per cent from last year. This could change if there are crop failures or forest fires or other unforeseen calamities.

“It’s a good balanced budget for the people of the province,” Brkich said. “This is what we have worked towards.”

He said Saskatchewan is one of the few provinces in the country with a balanced budget.

The budget predicts a $34.4 million surplus.

“We had a tough budget two years ago,” Brkich said of the 2017-2018 budget that saw deep spending cuts in the face of falling resource revenues. Brkich said that budget laid the foundation for the province, which is still on a path of slow, steady growth.

The provincial government is calling this year’s financial plan “The Right Balance”.

At $5.89 billion, health care is the greatest expense in the budget. The Saskatchewan Health Authority received an $113 million increase to bring its funding up to $3.6 billion. The province is increasing funding for targeted mental health and addictions initiatives by $29.8 million. The province will now spend $402 on mental health and addictions.

Education received a slight 0.6 per cent increase in funding. Total spending on education is $3.28 billion. School divisions will receive $26.2 million more than last year to bring this total to $1.9 billion.

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