Vermont sheep gives birth to rare sextuplets, six lambs thrive on farm

A ewe at Clover & Bee Farm in Underhill, Vermont, delivered sextuplets earlier this month, and all six lambs were doing well along with their mother. Anne O'Connor, who runs the farm with her husband, Gunnar, said the birth was even more surprising because a recent checkup had suggested the animal would have two lambs.

The ewe had already made history on the small farm once before. She previously had quadruplets, and O'Connor said she suspected there might be more than the two lambs the checkup predicted because the ewe looked unusually large and went into labor earlier than expected. When the lambing finally came, the babies kept arriving one after another.

O'Connor estimated sextuplets at about 1 in 1,000, while some agricultural websites put the odds at one in a million or higher. The Vermont Sheep & Goat Association checked around after the birth and found only one other shepherd with a sheep that had delivered that many lambs. That kind of rarity makes the successful outcome especially notable, since multiple births in sheep can push a flock’s care and feeding demands far beyond the norm.

Veterinary specialists have long said sextuplets remain exceptional in sheep and require close monitoring in the first weeks of life, especially to make sure every lamb gets enough colostrum and nutrition. A University of Saskatchewan veterinary team reported in 2023 that one sextuplet lambing produced six healthy lambs that all survived with supplemental feeding, a reminder that survival depends on fast intervention, steady milk access and constant observation.

At Clover & Bee Farm, the birth also changes the economics of a modest operation that is heading into its fifth summer raising sheep. The flock has grown to 21 sheep after the sextuplets and two other recent babies were added, and five ewes were pregnant at the time of the report. The farm raises sheep for wool and also grows herbs and berries, spreading the workload across a small diversified business rather than a single livestock line.

The lambs are partially Finnsheep and were given a playful system of names: the numbers one through six in Finnish. Their mother is named Teemu, after Finnish hockey player and Hall of Famer Teemu Selänne. The O'Connors plan to keep the four ewe lambs and place the two male lambs in new homes, while Teemu is expected to rest from breeding for a while before likely adding to the flock again later.