Quintuplet lambs cause excitement at farm

There's been a lot of excitement over the last few days at a hobby farm north of Truro where a sheep gave birth to quintuplets.

Five new lambs were born to the MacPhee family from Upper North River on Monday.

It was quite a shock to everyone on Monday morning when they found out they were the new owners of quintuplets.

Cherry—the ewe who gave birth to the five lambs—has proven to be a very prolific sheep.  She was a triplet herself and twice she's given birth to triplets of her own. Now the quintuplets.

The entire MacPhee family will be pitching in to give Cherry some much-needed help.

"When you first start feeding them for about the first week it'll be really hard. But after that they should start feeding," said 13-year-old Olivia MacPhee.

"The kids are anxious to look after them and bottle-feed them.  The first thing they said was 'Can we take them to school?'  So we're really hoping they thrive so they can take them to school and show all their friends," said Michelle MacPhee.

Ewes usually give birth to single lambs, twins or triplets, even quadruplets on occasion.  But quintuplets don't come around very often.

"Certainly to have quintuplets is rare.  But it's not unheard of, we've had quintuplets here before with our flock, maybe one per year. But since this story came out, we've kind of done the figures and it's about one to two per cent," said Jean Lynds with the Nova Scotia Agricultural College.

Four of the lambs are strong and healthy; only one seems to be a bit small and weak.

The next few days are crucial for her health, but she has a good appetite and that's a good sign.

The five new lambs bring the MacPhee's flock to sixteen.  The ram that made it all possible now has a new nickname—Stud Muffin.