Underhill, Vit.– Anne O’Connor kept counting sheep, which made her feel sleepy.
Sheep is owned by O’Connor, who runs Clover & The bee farm in Underhill, Vermont, with her husband, Gunnar, gave birth to a rare litter of six lambs earlier this month. The sextuplets and their mother are all doing well, which makes the unexpected pregnancy windfall even more amazing.
The same ewe had previously given birth to quadruplets, and while a recent scan indicated she would have two lambs this time, O’Connor suspected more were due. When the big day came, the little lambs seemed to keep coming and coming, she said.
“I was a little skeptical, given her size and that she was going a little early, that she might have more than two babies,” she said. “Six is great, but it’s definitely – it’s a lot.”
Sources differ on how common sheep sextuplets are, with O’Connor putting the number at around 1 in 1,000 and some agricultural websites putting it at 1 in a million or higher. O’Connor said she had contact with Vermont sheep & Goat Society around the births, and the group could only find one other shepherd who had a sheep that gave birth to a lot of lambs.
“They take longer to reach full body weight, but most of them are fine,” Christine Judkins of Gilead Fiber Farm, who has a ewe that has given birth to sextuplets three years in a row, said in an email. “You have to monitor them during the first few weeks to make sure they are getting enough food.”
The lambs, which are partly of the Finnish sheep breed, are named by the numbers one to six in Finnish. Their mother was named Teemu after Finnish hockey player and Hockey Hall of Famer Teemu Selänne. The O’Connors plan to keep the four ewes and find homes for the two male lambs.
The farm raises sheep for wool, and also grows herbs and berries. She is heading into her fifth summer of raising sheep. The flock is thriving – along with two more newborns, bringing the total number of six new lambs to 21. Five ewes are currently pregnant.
Teemu’s breeding days are likely not over. O’Connor said she will be allowed a break, but chances are good she will have more lambs in the future.
“She’s a great mom, and she’s doing a great job at this,” O’Connor said. “She’s still in her reproductive years, so it’ll probably be a year or more before she’ll be able to put her hooves up.”
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Whittle reported from Portland, Maine.