Two separate farm births have defied the odds, with sextuplet lambs born in Co. Wicklow and triplet calves born in Co. Cavan.

Farmer Edward Allen received the "extraordinary" surprise as he comes to the end of lambing on his farm in Donard, Co. Wicklow.

Allen was working into the early hours of the morning, when at 1:00a.m one of his hogget ewes began the successful birth of four rams and two ewe lambs.

George Finlay of Ballyhubbock Farm helped in the delivery that night, and Allen said that without the helping hand, he did not think the lambs "would have all made it alive".

“I had her scanned for five sheep and I thought, ‘that man is never wrong with the scanning’, and I left it at that. Five lambs from the one mother would be very rare in itself.

"Even the vet in the area said he had never seen a case of six born from the one mother and surviving," Allen said.

Four of the lambs have foster ewes, and all six are "thriving", after beating the rare chances, which are often mooted as one-in-a-million.

Meanwhile, in Dowra, Co. Leitrim, farmer John Crawford welcomed healthy triplet calves on to the farm in the last week from their first calving heifer.

"We were expecting triplets after the scan, but didn't know if they'd make it the whole way through. They're healthy now, with coats on them, and being treated like three children nearly," Crawford said.

The triplets are from a Charolais/Limousin cross, bred with the Crawford's own stock Limousin bull, averaging around 45kg each.

The odds of a cow having triplets of the same sex is 400,000 to one, however it is not the first time the Crawford Brothers have experienced such a unique story.

Crawford told Agriland that the farm "coincidentally" also had a set of triplets in 2020 from a different Limousin cow, bred with the same stock bull.

The Crawford Brothers have been providing suckler farmers across Ireland with top quality in-calf heifers for over 20 years.

The business uses its Facebook page and TikTok pages to promote heifers, with an annual sale each October.