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A six-legged lamb born on Thomas Peoples’ farm in Oughterard in 2017 now has offspring of her own at foot.
The unusual ewe was born with an extra front leg and an extra hind leg on one side of her body.
The extra legs were located just behind her front shoulder. Neither of the legs fully reached the ground.
At the time, Peoples’ vet described the lamb as “just a freak of nature”, but that she was healthy.
The part-time farmer planned to have the extra vestigial limbs surgically removed but told the Irish Farmers Journal that he “never got around to it”.
The extra limbs have clearly not hindered the progress of the ewe, who now has a ram lamb at foot.
She was bred to a Charolais ram in the 2018 breeding season and her ram lamb is perfectly formed, without inheriting his mother’s unusual trait.
Peoples said the lamb tends to suckle from the side with the extra vestigial limbs.
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