Six-Legged Calf Heads for Ripley's Museum

Six-Legged Calf Heads for Ripley's Museum

ALBERT LEA, Minn. (Jan. 16) - It's the first and probably last six-legged calf born in Freeborn County, and this week it's being shipped down to Florida to be part of Ripley's Believe It or Not!.

"I've seen it. My family's seen it. My friends have seen it. Let the world see it," said David Spinler, the Newry Township farmer who owned the calf and closed the deal with the international museum of oddities this week.

"Two hundred years from now this will be shown and my name will be on it and that means a lot to me," he said.

The calf, born last April, died during birth due to the complications of having two extra legs. Spinler called a veterinarian to help but it was too late. The legs, which include hooves, and bones, stick out slightly to the left of the animal's back.

Spinler took the animal to a taxidermist, and this month it was ready. Ripley's required him to take several X-rays to prove its authenticity. Spinler wouldn't say what Ripley's paid him, although his profit was in the thousands.

Ripley's has about 10 cows with more than four legs, even an eight-legged one, and more than 50 two-head cows, spokesman Edward Meyer said. Ripley's has 28 museum's on four continents. It hasn't been determined where Spinler's calf will go.