Toffee’s sweet elk twins join her growing brood

Latest pair are her third set and come despite attempts by centre staff to stop her giving birth

An elk has remarkably given birth to a third set of twins – despite being given contraception to stop her from having offspring.

Six-year-old Toffee was already a mother-of-five before giving birth to her latest set of twins earlier this month.

Workers at the Scottish Deer Centre in Cupar, Fife, gave her a contraceptive injection last year after she had given birth to five youngsters in three years.

However, the injection backfired and they are now looking to rehome the babies.

The centre is home to 12 different species of the animal, with Toffee being an Eurasian elk.

Andrew Foster, 52, head keeper at the centre, said they had to make an educated guess that contraception intended for horses would work for elks.

He said: “Clearly, this was not the case. Local veterinary medicine does not typically cater to Eurasian elk so we have to improvise a little bit.

“The father of her babies has sadly died and we’re thinking of rehoming Toffee and her children.

“Elk don’t normally start breeding until they are three but when Toffee was one and first arrived here she soon gave birth to her first set of twins.

“Elks typically just eat and procreate. I want her to have as natural a life as possible so if we take away her ability then she’s losing out on a large part of her life.

“But we did want to give her a break from giving birth to so many baby elk.

“We’re definitely doing something right if she is reproducing twins so regularly.”

Eurasian Elk are likely to produce around 10 babies in a lifetime spanning, on average, between 12 and 16 years, so Toffee is well on her way to surpassing that number.

The deer centre caters for around 140 animals such as bears, otters and wolves.

Picture: SWNS. Toffee the elk and her third set of twins.