High five! Perfect present as sheep gives birth to quintuplets

For not only did the sheep give birth to the four lambs they were expecting - itself a rarity - but as they were celebrating their safe arrival a fifth came along.

The quintuplets were born to a Texell cross ewe at their farm near Dolanog in Mid Wales.

Callum said they knew the ewe was pregnant with four lambs as she had been scanned and so they were on hand to help with the delivery in the middle of the night just before Christmas.

"The birth was at 2am in the morning and the mum birthed them fantastically," he said.

"After the fourth one was born, we sat there and watched the lambs climb to their feet and try and tuck under their mum for some milk, only to find the ewe was pushing a fifth one out. This was a huge surprise to us as she was only scanned for four."

The mum and her five lambs are all doing well.

"Three have been adopted on to other ewes and the remaining two are being looked after amazingly by their mum. We were very surprised and delighted that they have all come out alive and well. In this little flock we have, we’ve never had a quintuplet before so this has been a lambing season to remember."

Both Callum and Mary have full time jobs and so fit lambing season into their lifestyle, which they say is very tiring but very enjoyable and rewarding.

Callum said: "I deliver supplies to farmers mainly across mid and north Wales, so before Christmas is my main chance to give the flock the best experience of lambing successfully through time and hard work."

Now the couple are looking for names for the lambs.

Mary said: "Callum’s mum, Sue, was very keen on naming them after the reindeers. Unfortunately, they all looked identical at the time and we were very sleep deprived to be thinking about names."