Sick Sheep Shocks Owner with a Miraculous Birth

Dotty the sheep wasn’t doing too well. At 10-years-old, Dotty was getting progressively weaker and sicker than her fellow barnyard animals, but then she got pregnant out of nowhere. But then her owner, Amy, had her worst fears confirmed: Dotty’s body couldn’t seem to sustain pregnancy and both of the babies were stillborn.

It seemed like the nail in the coffin. Sadly, Amy had to come to terms with the fact that she might have to put down the poor ewe that week.

A few days later, Amy went into the barn in the morning as she would on any other day. But that day, there was a new addition to the barnyard crew. To her surprise, a little, wet lamb dashed across the barn, probably taking her breathe away! Somehow, Dotty had managed to do it; she birthed a healthy baby.

Little did Amy know that this lamb was only the beginning of what she’d find in the barn that day.

Amy walked farther into the barn, searching for new mama to see what condition she was in — but she couldn’t have guessed what she’d find next. Huddled up around Dotty were three other lambs; all wet, all newly born. And after checking out each of the babies, Amy was relieved to find they were all perfectly healthy!

No one was more surprised or happier for this turn of events than Amy. Dotty was the first sheep Amy ever bought, so her love for the ewe ran deep.

“When I walked in, I saw a little wet lamb run across the barn and I thought, ‘that doesn’t make any sense’,” Amy told newscasters. “Then I rushed over to the other wall and saw three more lambs, all wet, huddled around Dotty.  We thought that she had those stillborn lambs in her and that she wasn’t going to make it.”

But somehow, Dotty had done it. She had come back from the brink of death and birthed four healthy lambs, without harming herself in the process.

Not only was this a surprise considering the ewe’s condition and her previous stillborns, but quadruplets are extremely rare in her breed. Dotty had been pregnant six other times in her life, and each time she had birthed healthy twins; so for her to have quadruplets wasn’t just unlikely, it was near impossible.

There was one little caveat: Dotty couldn’t nurse her babies. For whatever reason, the ewe only had two nipples from which to nurse, so all four lambs are being fed from bottles. Despite this, all the quadruplets — Patches, Sunny, Tyke, and Spot — are doing extremely well. Their mom wants to be extremely involved in their lives, even if she’s not nursing them; Amy claims the mama sheep is always around, sniffing at the bottles to make sure she’s feeding her baby’s the right thing. How adorable!

What do you think of this miraculous birthing story? Share your thoughts on Dotty and her quads in the comments section below.