Skip to content

Sheep has 'one in a million' quintuplet birth

Emily Johnson,Yorkshireand
Richard Fox,Yorkshire
News imageBBC/ Richard Fox A sheep standing in a straw‑covered pen with five newborn lambs gathered closely around her, inside a barn with concrete walls and wooden panels.BBC/ Richard Fox
Quincy, a sheep from the Swinton Estate, gave birth to five lambs

A sheep has given birth to five lambs on a North Yorkshire estate in a "one in a million" event.

Quincy, the six-year-old ewe, had the quintuplets on the Swinton Estate, near Masham, on Saturday.

Landowner Mark Cunliffe-Lister said the births had been an "amazing surprise" and something he had never seen.

"Poor Quincy, she was looking pretty exhausted by the whole experience," he laughed.

Quincy the "one in a million" ewe and her five lambs

Most sheep give birth to one or two lambs at a time but triplets are also fairly common.

Four lambs is considered a rare occurrence but five lambs is thought to be a "one in a million" chance, according to farmers.

Cunliffe-Lister, who was present at the birth and owns 20 sheep, said: "I was busy looking after another one, they just had twins.

"I thought I'd leave her to it because I could see she'd had three and every time I kept popping out, suddenly another one had appeared."

According to the landowner, the lambs are all fit and healthy but some intervention was needed to feed them.

"If I was a proper sheep farmer, I'd have them scanned and I'd probably had some idea," he added.

"But for us, it's just an amazing surprise when normally a triplet is as big as I've ever seen, to get five was quite incredible."

Cunliffe-Lister hopes the lambs will grow up to participate in the Masham Sheep Fair in September.

Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.