The World’s Largest Collection of Two-Headed Calves
The Atlas Obscura Podcast
SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura
4.6 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 14 August 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
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| 0:00.0 | In September 2017, a calf was born in Kentucky. |
| 0:06.5 | Her name was lucky, and she had two heads. |
| 0:13.5 | Polycephaly, or having two heads, |
| 0:16.3 | is a condition that comes when an embryo does not entirely split. |
| 0:21.6 | It's pretty rare. Typically, embryos with this condition also don't survive long enough to even make it to a birth. |
| 0:28.6 | And if they do, they often live just a few days. |
| 0:33.6 | Lucky was different. She lived a few days, and then a few days longer, and then a few days longer, and then eventually, Lucky was just alive. |
| 0:46.4 | She was born on a farm that was owned by a family, and she became something of a beloved pet. |
| 0:52.3 | Lucky would nudge up against her humans when she wanted to be stroked. |
| 0:56.4 | She slept in the family's basement, |
| 0:58.6 | and the couple's five-year-old daughter would bring her blanket downstairs |
| 1:01.6 | and snuggle up next to her. |
| 1:04.0 | Eventually, the family decided to bring Lucky in for a surgery |
| 1:07.9 | that would potentially allow her to live a lot longer. |
| 1:12.1 | They set up a vet appointment and the local community raised $1,200 to help the family cover the cost. |
| 1:19.6 | Lucky died a week before her vet visit. |
| 1:23.2 | She had lived 108 days, the longest we know of that any two-headed calf has lived on this planet. |
| 1:31.7 | The family buried Lucky by a creek near their home. |
| 1:39.2 | Lucky's story feels pretty singular, and it is. |
| 1:47.6 | But she's certainly not the only two-headed calf in the world. And not all of them are born into families that give them a loving burial. |
| 1:54.3 | Recently, I heard about this museum, a very unusual one. It's a collection of taxidermied two-headed calves the largest collection of its kind |
| 2:04.5 | in the world about 50 specimens and so i wanted to know who made this place how did they |
... |
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