A BANTRY farming family is celebrating a special arrival after one of its ewes gave birth to quintuplet lambs.

The Whooley family were taken by surprise by the special delivery – which is regarded as being a rare, one-in-a-million occurrence.

Only four lambs appeared on the ewe’s scan so the family had no idea she was carrying a fifth. All are female, four white and one black.

Speaking to The Southern Star, Linda Whooley said there was ‘fierce excitement’ when it was discovered that five healthy female lambs were born.

The farm has already seen four sets of quadruplet lambs being born, but this is their first occurrence of healthy quintuplets.

Linda said her children Matthew, Cora and Eoin were delighted to discover the surprise:

‘The kids were like ‘one, two, three, four….five! Oh my god, there’s another one, mom!’ They were weak then that there was actually five of them.’

Linda shared a sweet photo as three generations of the family posed to commemorate the event – Matthew, Cora and Eoin, dad Tony, grandad Anthony and granny Angela all knelt down in the lambing pen to meet their little lambs.

The ewe can only raise two lambs by herself, so the Whooley’s will keep the other three as pets.