Ewe delivers five lambs on Billingshurst farm

The lambs were born on the morning of Sunday March 27 to their four-year-old mother at Coppedhall Farm.

Louise Dace has been farming lambs for five years and she says although she has seen four lambs delivered by a ewe, she has never seen five.

Ewes normally give birth to two lambs on average at one time, although three is common and four is considered rare. It is also quite often that one or two lambs from a quadruple birth will not survive. According to the online magazine ‘South West Farmer’, the chance of a quintuplet birth in sheep is one in 10,000, which makes these five little lambs particularly extraordinary.

At the moment, Mrs Dace says she is having trouble weaning the lamps onto bottled milk.

She said: “I’ve got two lambs on the bottle but ewes only have two teats so I need to get another two on the bottle as well.”

Coppedhall Farm is mainly used to train race horses but five years ago Mrs Dace began farming sheep when she bought four lambs. Today the farm holds around 80 sheep.

This is not the first time this year that a ewe has given birth to five lambs.

In January, Cumbrian farmer John Mouncey saw his ewe have a brood of five after more than 50 years of farming.