Teagasc has a candidate that would be very hard to beat in finding Ireland’s most prolific ewe. A Belclare ewe gave birth to six healthy lambs on Wednesday.
The feat is rare in itself but what is even more unusual is that all six lambs have survived and are doing great. Teagasc technician Henry Walsh has worked in Mellows campus for some time and has never seen or heard of a Belclare ewe giving birth to six lambs that have all survived.
Seven lambs
During his time he has delivered seven lambs from a Cambridge ewe (a breed renowned for high prolificacy) but two of these lambs did not survive and the average weight of the lambs at about 2.8kg was much lower than the Belclare sextuplets. The sextuplet lambs combined had a weight 20.54kg, with individual weights recorded at 4.3kg, 3.9kg, 3.63kg, 3.24kg, 3.1kg and 2.37kg.
According to Henry, the successful birth was helped by the flock’s scanner Pat Fleming picking up the six lambs at scanning. “It is harder to pick up higher litter sizes but the fact that Pat identified it allowed us to give her some preferential treatment and put plans in place. We moved her to a straw-bedded pen where she had good room and plenty of exercise and was able to get preferential treatment.
"She was fed as good a quality silage as I have seen with a DMD of 82 and 1.5kg concentrates for the last four weeks. All of this paid off and has delivered great excitement here for the last few days.”
Henry also highlighted another unusual element of all lambs being presented normally for birth, which led to minimal assistance being required. He was aided by Nicola Fetherstone, PhD student with the INZAC flock, and Teagasc technician Martin Ward.
Nicola explained that the ewe had a super yield of colostrum, with lambs vigorous post-lambing and getting to suckle twice while colostrum intake was also topped up by giving lambs a colostrum alternative - Volostrum.
The ewe was a little off her feed and dull on Thursday, which prompted Henry to administer a glycerol injection and pen strep. She was slow to recover and veterinary attention identified a slight uterine infection. The vet washed the ewe out and by Friday morning she had made a quick recovery and was back to herself.
Giving birth to six lambs was hard on the ewe and, as such, she will be left to rear two lambs with the other four reared on a Volac automatic feeder that is present in the unit.
Ireland’s most prolific ewe
The ewe is no stranger to high litter sizes. She gave birth to five lambs as a hogget but Henry says two were small and did not survive. This performance was followed by three lambs in 2017 which brings the total lambs delivered to 14 in three years. Henry explains that the ewe was also a quad and this has added to delivering high-prolificacy genes.
“The focus in the flock is more on trying to breed ewes that will produce twins but this ewe has shown to be much more prolific than her comrades. The flock is operated in a closed manner and has scanned steady at around 2.2 lambs per ewe in recent years.”
Belclare breed returning home after 35 years