A three-eyed calf has been rehomed in Leicester and renamed after a Hindu god after an animal sanctuary bought the animal, believed to be ‘special’, from a Welsh farmer.
The unusual-looking calf made headlines in May after a vet who was testing animals on the North Wales farm came across the animal.
Reports of the vet’s discovery caught the attention of an animal welfare charity, Jain Animal Sanctuary, which then pledged to purchase the cow.
The charity, which provides funding to sanctuaries in the UK and internationally, purchased the cow for a total of £5,000 after weeks of negotiations with its previous owner.
Nitin Mehta, who founded the Jain Animal Sanctuary said: “Because the cow had three eyes we thought he was special and we wanted to rescue him because like all of these animals, he would have ended up being slaughtered eventually.”
The calf has now been rehomed locally at a Sanctuary called Goshalla in Leicester, based in the Charnwood village, Beeby. Goshalla in Leicester’s ethos is based around the Hindu principle that all living creatures are important and deserving of equal respect and that cows, in particular, are considered sacred within the religion.
Nitin Mehta who helped the Sanctuary purchase the calf said its three eyes were also “especially significant” as it shared a characteristic of the Hindu god, Shiva. Asha Patel
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