A Tenterden farmer was given a pleasant surprise last week when one of his ewes gave birth to a rare quadruplet of lambs.

Chris Tomlinson said one of his farmhands was out feeding his flock of 2200 merino ewes on May 27 when he spotted four freshly born lambs huddled around their mother.

“It has been a really good lamb season weather-wise and we’ve been noticing a lot of twins and lots of triplets,” he said.

“We have a person who goes around feeding the sheep every couple of days and we were talking about triplets, when they spotted a quad.

“He kept an eye on the ewe and she was a really good mother, hanging around with them and making sure they were all kept together.”

Mr Tomlinson said in his decades of farming across the Great Southern he hadn’t come across another set of quadruplets.

“It’s always a hard one to believe but it can happen,” he said.

“Triplets are common but not quads — you do hear about the odd quad but it’s pretty rare.”

The four lambs, which are a merino and white suffolk crossbreed, were thankfully born living and healthy.

He said they are being “well-mothered”.

“We’ve been at Tenterden for 13 years on a broadacre cropping and sheep farm and farmed out in Esperance for 10 years and then 21 years in Bremer Bay where I grew up, and this has been a particularly good lambing season,” he said.

“I haven’t really told too many people about (the quad) as we’ve been busy with putting our crop in and seeding, but mentioned it and showed the photo to a few family and friends who also hadn’t seen anything like it.

“The sheep are in really good condition due to an early break we had in the season from the cyclone, the 46mm rain we had back in March, so hopefully the quad can stick it out.”