Meet the lamb quintuplets born to one Staunton farm, marking a one-in-a-million occurrence that's just too cute. Mike Tripp, mtripp@newsleader.com
STAUNTON — On Saturday morning Erin Murphy had to count twice when she saw that one of her sheep, Mursheen, had given birth the night before to not one, not two, three or even four, but five lambs.
Murphy and husband Florian Buchholz live on a 10-acre farm just outside of Staunton off of Nature Trail Lane. They've been raising goats for eight years and sheep for four, and have never had a ewe give birth to five lambs. In fact, it's known as a one-in-a-million occurrence.
At about 6 a.m. Murphy and Buchholz went outside to see if they had any new baby lambs — along with Mursheen they have three other sheep that are pregnant and one that recently gave birth.
They were shocked to discover five baby lambs and had to make sure that they were all Mursheen's and that the other three sheep were still pregnant. Sure enough, the others had not given birth.
Both ewe and lambs are healthy — albeit on the the small size — and two have in fact found new homes as of Monday. A veterinarian warned Murphy that five lambs would be too much for Mursheen's milk supply and the babies would need to be bottle fed so as not to deplete mom's resources, which can lead to hypocalcemia.
"She's got her work cut out for her as is," Murphy said.
Her and her husband have five sons, who have accepted the task of taking care of the babies along with their other chores on the farm.
Mursheen has in the past given birth to quadruplets, as has her sister. But Murphy and Buchholz had no idea they were going to witness the extremely rare birth of quintuplets.
Mursheen was looking rather large before giving birth to her brood. According to Murphy sheep are stealthy when it comes time to give birth and for that reason she's not entirely sure when Mursheen had the lambs. She added, however, that once the process begins it's very quick, about 20 minutes for all the lambs to be born.
Murphy and Buchholz plan to keep a couple of the lambs to integrate into their existing herd — which began four years ago with bottle-fed lambs.
Both Murphy and Buchholz are college professors. Murphy in the music department at Mary Baldwin University and Buchholz in the computer science department at James Madison University.
"It's nice to see the fruits of your labor," Murphy said of the contrast between their work in the classroom and their work on the farm. "It's hard too. It's a lifestyle. You can't just leave and go on long vacations. You have to be responsible for these animals."