Dumfriesshire farming family stunned by arrival of five lambs

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A Dumfriesshire farming family was stunned by a highly unlikely “five alive” delivery of lambs this week.David and Paula Reid, who run Calf Park Farm in Mouswald, were delighted when one of their pedigree Suffolk ewes gave birth to five lambs on Monday night.Having been on the family farm for more than half a century, David has never witnessed anything like it in all that time.And neither the couple, or their daughters Jenna, 20, and 17-year-old Lara, expected all five lambs to make it.“They all popped out and survived,” said Pauline. “It’s very unusual, we’ve certainly never had five before – and definitely not five alive.”David and Paula were surprised when a scan first revealed there were five lambs close to birth, and feared the strain of the birth would kill their ewe.“But no, the ewe was determined she was going to have them,” said Paula.“She held on and held on, and was the last of this AI (artificial insemination) batch to lamb.“It was actually over pretty quickly, about 15 minutes.“She popped them out herself mostly and when my daughter first went out she’d already had two of them.“So, we just went out for the delivery of the others and were surprised they all survived.”With the land being passed down from his dad, David has been at Calf Park Farm all his life.The family own around 60 pedigree Suffolk sheep, while daughters Jenna and Lara also look after Border Leicester and Dutch Spotted breeds.