Farmers in Underhill, Vermont, were watching their flock and expecting a routine outcome until a ewe surprised them with an unusually large litter. Anne O’Connor, who runs Clover & Bee Farm with her husband, Gunnar, said the ewe gave birth earlier this month to six lambs and that the mother and all of the lambs are doing well.
O’Connor said the timing and the ewe’s condition initially suggested she might have more than two. She said a recent checkup indicated the ewe would have two lambs, but she suspected more “just given how big she was and that she was going a little earlier.” As the delivery began, she described continuing to count as the number of newborn lambs increased.
O’Connor said the sextuplets are especially noteworthy because sheep sextuplets are rare. She put the odds at around 1 in 1,000, while some agricultural websites place the probability much lower, at one in a million or higher. She said she has been in touch with the Vermont Sheep & Goat Association about the births and that the group found only one other shepherd had a sheep give birth to that many lambs.
The lambs are partially of the Finnsheep breed, and their names reflect that theme and a family connection. O’Connor said the lambs were named the numbers one through six in Finnish, and that their mother was named Teemu after Finnish hockey player and Hockey Hall of Famer Teemu Selänne.
Kristen Judkins of Gilead Fiber Farm, who owned a ewe that had sextuplets three years in a row, said sextuplets can require extra early-care attention. In an email, Judkins said the lambs “do take longer to reach full body weight,” and that owners “have to keep an eye on them for the first few weeks to make sure they are getting enough to eat.”
O’Connor said the O’Connors plan to keep the four female lambs and find homes for the two male lambs. The farm raises sheep for wool, and O’Connor also grows herbs and berries as part of the operation, which she said is headed toward its fifth summer raising sheep.
She said the farm’s flock has been growing alongside other recent births. She said the six new lambs brought the total flock count up to 21, and she said five ewes are currently pregnant. O’Connor also suggested that Teemu’s breeding days may not be over, saying the ewe will be allowed a respite but that it is likely she will have more lambs in the future.