A first time mum in Thames doesn't do it by halves - giving birth to quintuplet lambs. Thames resident and ex-sheep farmer Weston Finlay keeps sheep on his property to keep the lawns in check and when he was offered a second ewe to accompany his first he couldn't see any problem.

A first time mum in Thames doesn't do it by halves - giving birth to quintuplet lambs.

Thames resident and ex-sheep farmer Weston Finlay keeps sheep on his property to keep the lawns in check and when he was offered a second ewe to accompany his first he couldn't see any problem.

Only the new sheep was not a ewe at all.

Cameron Massey First time mum 'Sheep' and her five lambs born in Thames last week. The quintuplets certainly surprised owner Weston Finlay.

"When it arrived, it was less than 12-months-old and it hadn't been docked properly and it had one testicle," Finlay said.

"Sure enough he's done the job; we know his stuff works, even though he's only got one."

Last Thursday, Finlay noticed his original ewe, 'Sheep', getting ready to go into labour.

"I realised that she was going to start, she was going around in circles, anyway, sure enough, I said to my wife 'I had better stay home this morning, the old girl looks like she is going to have a lamb'," he said.

"Sure enough she had one, so I put it up in the wood shed because he wasn't very bright, he was cold and wet."

Finlay left the ewe and her new baby alone, returning a short while later to check up on them.

"And there's three of them there and I thought 'heck triplets! This is a bit of fun'."

Finlay played midwife, cleaned the young lambs up and helped them feed off their mum, but Sheep hadn't finished yet.

"The next minute she starts straining and 'bloop' out comes another one."

Amazed, Finlay decided to move Sheep and her four new-borns to a better shelter for a bit of a rest and recovery, where he left them to it.

"This all started around 9 o'clock and I came back at 12 and there was another one," Finlay said.

"I thought 'hang on, are you kidding me?'."

Finlay has heard of four lambs to a ewe, but doesn't know of any quintuplets that have survived and thinks Sheep may have been a twin or triplet herself.

He plans to keep the pair that Sheep is feeding and has found homes for the other three.

As for the ram, Finlay knows where he might end up.

"He might get knocked on the head and turned into sausages or something; we're not really looking to breed."