Ewe won’t believe the one about the Fox and the six spring lambs

A FARMER from Kildalkey has said was both shocked and delighted when a sheep on his farm gave birth to six charollais lambs last Wednesday, February 24. Bernard Fox, a sheep and suckler farmer said that the huge litter size came as a surprise, as the ewe, a Belclare, was only expected to give birth to four lambs.

“We weren’t expecting it all.” Bernard said, “She was scanned for four lambs but six were born. All six were born alive and well which is very unusual when you have a litter that size I think the odds are one-in-a-million for all of them to survive."

However, Bernard says things could have turned out very differently if it wasn’t for the help of two local teenagers who were on hand to help the ewe to give birth.

"I’ve been getting help during the lambing season from Shane and Padraig Monahan who are supposed to be doing their Leaving Cert but were off school due to Covid-19. They were a great help and while it may sound a bit dramatic but if they weren’t there to help the sheep at least half of the litter could have died or possibly all of them, so I’m very grateful for their help.”

While multiple births are common with the Belclare breed, this is the first time that Bernard has had a litter this big.

“You’d regularly get litters with up to four lambs being born in them, but that’s generally as high as things would go. Occasionally there’d be a litter of five but they all wouldn’t survive, so to have six living lambs was a huge bonus.