An unusual birth over the weekend in Antwerp was a shock to Mertex Texel & White Suffolk Stud principal Tim Jorgensen.
In the midst of lambing season and realising his pregnant 2019 White Suffolk ewe was behaving unusually, he checked early Saturday to find her in labour and assisted, pulling out two ewes and three rams.
"I was watching the Djokovich tennis match on the French open, which finished a bit after 2.00am and I thought I'd go and check her, then ended up pulling the five out of her." Mr Jorgensen said.
"I knew she would have at least three and I wanted to go to bed so I got one, two, three, four and felt her stomach and she still had another one in there."
With a herd of 5000 ewes, including commercial Mr Jorgensen had sheep birth up to five in the past only a handful of times, but never all alive and healthy like these lambs, which weighed a combined 20 kilograms, ranging in weight from 3kg to 5.4kg.
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"[Previously] There'd been some that had died a month before they were born and weren't fully developed but I've never had the whole five get to full term and come out alive," Mr Jorgensen said.
"These weren't runty or anything, they were fully developed and fine."
With the Mertex Stud lambing season only recently underway, they expect a busy few weeks ahead right up until attending the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show in July.
Their breeding program utilised artificial insemination, embryo transfer and natural mating, with the mother-of-five naturally mated.
"She did have Regulin, otherwise she was just run out in the paddock with the rams," Mr Jorgensen said.