Rare quadruplet lambs thrive on Kalispell farm

After 25 years of breeding sheep in the Flathead Valley, Julie Robinson admits that her ability to pick creative names for her newborn lambs is more limited than it used to be.

But First One, Sugar, Spice and Last One, the newest members to the flock of wool breed sheep Robinson raises in the pastures of her Kalispell-area home, don’t need inventive names to be unique.

The lambs, born April 16, are quadruplets — a rarity in all sheep breeds — but particularly in the Romeldale breed, to which their mother, Brownie, belongs. According to Robinson, Romeldale ewes typically birth twins.

The lambs’ solid brown color, known as moorit, is hard to come by in sheep. The moorit color trait is carried by a recessive allele, meaning there is only a 25 percent chance that a lamb born to parents with the allele in their genotypes will be moorit.

Combine that with the fact that they are all female and completely healthy, and you’ve got four wool-covered products of what Robinson calls incredibly small odds.

When Robinson observed that Brownie, who had consistently birthed twins in the past, looked larger than normal during her pregnancy, she assumed the ewe had triplets on the way. After Brownie had delivered two babies in the pasture, Robinson brought them into the barn for shelter from the windy, cold and damp weather.

“And I’m glad I did,” she said, “because I had a couple more [lambs] by the time all was said and done.”

Robinson said that since she is the only inhabitant of her home, she would not have easily been able to call for assistance had there been complications during Brownie’s labor. Had there been more than two newborns in the pasture — which is all she could have carried into the barn at once, she would have had to come back for the others — which would have confused their mother.

“The ewe may not normally count past two,” she explained. “In that situation, she can hear in both directions and she doesn’t know which way to go.”

It was lucky, Robinson noted, that Brownie waited until the first two were inside the barn to give birth to the others.

Even when a ewe does have quadruplets, it’s rare for all to survive. Complications during birth may cause stillbirths, and the ones that are born alive may be runts. The quadruplets were all normally sized, weighing within the average of 5 to 7 pounds for newborn lambs, which she said significantly helped their chances of survival.

Since a ewe has only two teats, Robinson said a group of more than two newborns may have difficulty figuring out how to feed, which in some cases can be fatal if they aren’t offered a bottle as an alternative.

Robinson made bottle-feeding available to the quadruplets, but they were able to work out a feeding schedule without the bottle. Lambs are less likely to become reliant on a bottle if it’s not offered to them at the same time every day. And since Robinson was not able to feed them at the same time each day, it forced them to learn to feed from Brownie.

After they made it past the first week, the critical period in determining survival chances, she knew they were healthy. Two and a half months later, they have grown into happy, healthy and thriving 40-pound sheep.

The exceptional care Robinson offers them, of course, doesn’t hurt.

“They don’t have a very difficult life here,” she said. “They’re treated with love and kindness, and I think that makes a difference.”

Robinson hopes the lambs’ father, a 2-year-old South Australian Merino moorit ram she bought from a breeder in California, will continue to prove useful for breeding more moorit sheep. Previously named Bonne Chance (“good luck” in French), he was renamed Studly Dudley after he impregnated one of Robinson’s other ewes last year.