Ewe gives birth to five healthy lambs
Katie, Lydia and Lenny Down with the quintuplet lambs A Devon farmer has spoken of her delight after one of her ewes gave birth to five healthy lambs.
Tracy Down runs 250 Charollais and Suffolks at Wigstone Farm, Manaton, Dartmoor, and is building up the flock with bought-in ewes.
Mrs Down told Farmers Weekly the ewe was purchased in-lamb four months ago among a batch of 30 from a farm in nearby Hatherleigh.
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“The ewes were scanned and 26 of the group were carrying triplets including this one,” said Mrs Down.
“She was one of the last of the flock to lamb and after she had produced three lambs we walked away and left her to settle.”
It is only when Mrs Down returned that she found all five lambs in the pen alongside the ewe.
“All of them were standing there in the pen; it was incredible.
“All are black and at more than 3lbs birthweight each they are remarkably big and healthy,” she said.
“The last time I saw it happen was 30 years ago on my uncle’s farm,” Mrs Down said.
How rare is it for a ewe to produce five lambs?
The odds of a ewe producing five live lambs are commonly reported to be one in a million. However, a farm in Killeigh, County Offaly, Ireland, has already produced six sets of live quintuplets this year. Ken and Richard Mathews’ flock of Suffolk/Belclare cross ewes began lambing on 4 March and 10 sets of quintuplets were born within three weeks. Some lambs were lost but a total of six sets of live quintuplets survived.