Anne O'Connor, who runs Clover & Bee Farm in Underhill, Vermont, with her husband Gunnar, was ready for a couple of new lambs. Her sheep, Teemu (named after the Finnish hockey player, naturally), was expecting twins.
Then six lambs arrived. Because apparently, Teemu doesn't do things by halves. Or even by doubles. She just goes for it.
Remarkably, both Teemu and all six of her new, tiny, extremely surprising offspring are doing well. This isn't even Teemu's first rodeo — she'd previously delivered quadruplets. Clearly, this ewe has a flair for the dramatic.
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O'Connor had a hunch something was up. Teemu was uncharacteristically large and went into labor a bit early. "Six is great, but it’s definitely — it’s plenty," O'Connor noted, with what we can only assume was a very dry understatement.
Just how rare are sheep sextuplets? Sources can't quite agree, putting the odds anywhere from 1 in 1,000 to a staggering 1 in a million. The Vermont Sheep & Goat Association could only recall one other shepherd in the entire state who'd seen such a prolific birth. Though Kristen Judkins of Gilead Fiber Farm did mention owning a ewe that had sextuplets three years in a row, which just sounds like a very specific kind of chaos.
The new additions, partly Finnsheep (a breed known for its larger litters, though six is still pushing it), have been named numbers one through six in Finnish. Because when you have that many, you might as well lean into the theme.
The O'Connors plan to keep the four female lambs and find homes for the two males. With these six new arrivals and two other recent babies, Clover & Bee Farm's flock has ballooned to 21. And with five more ewes currently pregnant, it seems the farm is about to get even cozier.
Teemu, the superstar mom, will likely have more lambs in the future. Though O'Connor assures us, "She’s still very much in her reproductive years, so probably a year or more and she’ll just, you know, be able to put her hooves up." A well-deserved break, one might say, after delivering an entire starting lineup.
