Lambing comes early in the UK farming calendar at Park Farm in order to support the Department of Veterinary Medicine and to best fit in with the academic timetable, to ensure that our vet students are available to help lamb the ewes.
Park Farm manager Paul Kelly said, "The ewe (pictured) was ably assisted by one of our vet students to have 4 healthy babies, known as quads."
Quadruplet births are unusual, only occurring in around 1 in 500 births. This makes sense from a practical perspective as ewes only have one udder with two teats, so extra care needs to be taken to ensure that all of the babies are properly fed, either by bottle, or being nursed by another ewe.