Ewe wouldn’t believe it
Five lambs born live to one ewe are so rare, the chances of Molly, Polly, Holly, Ollie and Keith arriving together are more than a million to one.
Jeff Davis, who came up with the names over a Saturday night drink, and Lana Barron of Te Mahoe Station at Awakino, 90 kilometres north of New Plymouth, have seen quadruplet lambs but never quintuplets.
So when Davis discovered five lambs toddling after a 6-year-old ewe last week, he thought she had stolen some.
‘‘I couldn’t believe it,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ve been here five years and had one set of quads but they were all very small.’’
To add confusion, the babies are a mixture of breeds – suffolk, suffolk/ texel cross and perendale. ‘‘I put three rams out and I think she’s had a turn with all of them.’’
Pregnancy scanning had indicated the coopworth perendale cross ewe, number 605, was carrying triplets. ‘‘They must have all been sitting on top of each other inside her,’’ Davis said. The ewe was in good condition and her quintuplets were lively and about the same size as normal twins, he said.
Davis was giving all of the lambs supplementary feeds of milk to ensure they got off to a good start. Three of the lambs will be bottle fed, leaving their mother with two, he said.
‘‘She seems to be coping but obviously five lambs and two teats won’t work.’’
Davis said he usually ended up with about 10 lambs to hand rear each spring but generally managed to get some help. ‘‘If I can, I pass some of them on to kids for pet lambs.’’