Delight as quad lambs arrive on South Westmeath farm

When three little lambs arrived one after the other on a farm between Moate and Castledaly on Friday last, Christine Warburton thought “that was it” until a fourth lamb made a surprise appearance!

The birth of quad lambs is a very rare event indeed, occurring roughly once in every 500 births, so the birth of four healthy ewe lambs on the Warburton farm has been quite the talking point all weekend in the small rural townsland of Boggagh, between Moate and Castledaly.

Christine Warburton, who helped the lambing of the Suffolk Cross ewe along with neighbour, Willie Glynn, admits that she was expecting three little lambs and she admits she got “a huge surprise” when a fourth one arrived.

“This was the first time for the ewe to lamb, and she had been scanned for three lambs, so we were expecting triplets and we never thought for a minute there would be four,” she said.

With 22 little lambs having already arrived on the Warburton farm from 10 ewes – including two sets of triplets, Christine says she is “very busy” at the moment “topping up” the lambs with bottle feeds.

“Thank God all the quads are flying and are still with their mother, who is feeding them as well, so we would be hoping that will continue and she will be able to look after them,” she says, “but we always have to give a bit of a top up with the bottle when there are so many of them born to the one ewe.”

While their farm is mainly a beef enterprise, the Warburtons have been rearing sheep for the past five or six years and currently have a total of 35 ewes. With only 10 of them having given birth so far, that leaves a lot more lilttle lambs still on the way.

Christine's late father, Frank, passed away last October, and she says he would have been “over the moon” with the arrival of quads among this year's crop of lambs. “He always used to joke with us that farming was a disease, so we are carrying on the tradition and we take every day as it comes,” she says.

As for names for the four little lambs? - there are none “they are just all females” is what Christine Warburton matter of factly says!