The supermum sheep who gave birth to SIX lambs

Meet Dolly the supermum sheep - who astounded experts by giving birth to six healthy lambs.

The sextuplets were born to two-year-old Dolly, a pedigree Lleyn ewe on April 3 at Crookham Westfield farm, on the Pallinsburn Estate in Cornhill on Tweed, Northumberland.

Estate owner George Farr's sons Ollie, 11, and Jamie, 10, have named the three-week-olds Valerie, Harriet, Scrappy, Rosie, Chunky, and Slim.

The boys are helping Dolly feed her flock.

Farm worker Mark Richardson, 30, said he'd never seen so many lambs from a single ewe.

He said: 'I just went out one morning and there she was with the six lambs.

'I looked round the shed and none of the others had lambed, she was the only one, so they all came from her.

'It was a big surprise. Lleyns usually have two or three lambs, so to have six is very unusual. I have never seen it before.'

Ollie said: 'We have to hand feed them because Dolly has not enough teats for all six of them.

'Some of them take the bottles more easily than others, so we are feeding three out of the six; the three most tame.'

Jamie said: 'They are always hungry.

'We feed them in the morning at eight, at 12, four, then eight in the evening.

'They get through a lot of milk.'

It was Dolly's second crop of lambs and they are all organically fed. The ram is a Texel tup and the shepherd is Anthony King.

The Lleyn is a Welsh breed of hill sheep renowned for their strength, milk production, and mothering ability.

Lleyn Sheep Society spokesman Lynda Barnard said the last record of sextuplets was in 1996.

She said: 'It's not unusual for the breed to produce a lot of lambs but to have six is quite rare.

'They are terrific mothers. If there was any breed was going to rear six it would be a Lleyn.'

The Pallinsburn Estate is a 585.84 hectare mixed arable farm with 125 beef cattle and 138 sheep.

The flock has produced 98 lambs so far this year.

Mark's grandfather, Eck Richardson, had a ewe with six lambs at Rachelfield, Smailholm, near Kelso, in 1975.

The supermum sheep who gave birth to SIX lambs