By Daniel Winningham
A sheep-raising family had a rare occurrence happen on their farm a few weeks ago. A ewe gave birth to five healthy lambs May 19.
Brandon and Valerie Petzoldt live in North Cape Girardeau County on a small family farm with their two children. One of the aspects of the farm is raising sheep.
“We have had over 2000 lambs born since we started raising sheep,” said Valerie Petzoldt. “We thought we have seen most of everything but on Thursday, May 19, 2022, we woke up to a set of quintuplets. We have had many triplets before and have heard of quadruplets but never seen quintuplets. Upon researching, we discovered it is one in a million chance of this happening. The other amazing miracle is the mother, Noel, loves them all and is currently nursing all of them. We are supplementing the babies a little just so everyone has a full belly. They are all doing well and growing fast.”
“It’s truly a miracle from heaven!” Petzoldt said.
Petzoldt got her first sheep in 2002 at the Fruitland auction barn while working with Doc Freeman. It was an orphan lamb she named Sadie.
“I had to bottle feed her,” Petzoldt said. “I raised her and then eventually she needed a friend. That friend needed friends and (it just) snowballed from there. When Brandon and I got married in 2007 we had around 25 sheep and now we currently keep around 100 ewes.
The couple’s children, Austin, 13, and Autumn, 11, assist with the sheep.
“The kids do help raise the sheep,” she said. “Sometimes they will complain a bit when they have to do their chores like feeding, watering, and strawing. Each kid has their own favorite sheep.”
For the Petzoldts, the time of the year lambs are born varies.
“Our normal lambing time is October to March,” Petzoldt said. “The ewes that are lambing now are ones that actually lambed back last September or October. We sometimes have a few that lamb twice this close together but not this many. As of now we have had around 80 lambs born since May 8. In our normal lambing season we check the barn several times a day especially when the weather is cold and nasty. We can usually tell if a ewe is getting close so we kind of have an idea of when to pay more attention.
Sheep and lambs aren’t the only animal on the Petzoldt farm.
“We raise a few cows,” Petzoldt said. “Around 15 head or so. We also have 50-plus chickens, three turkeys, several bunnies and horse for my daughter.”
The quintuplets were born in mid-May but they’ll be staying with the mother for most of the summer, according to Petzoldt.
“The lambs usually stay with their mom two to four months then are weaned and sold to market. For these though they will have to stay with momma at least four months because we imagine they will grow a bit slower than say a set of twins would. All of our lambs have a creep feed available to them.”
In most years, late May or early June is when things tend to wind down with caring for newborn lambs. That won’t be the case in 2022.
“This is the time of year the sheep are usually pretty dull besides for getting 4H lambs ready but this year with the extra lambing it’s been quite crazy,” Petzoldt said. “A very good and blessed crazy though. I haven’t left the barn much this last month.”
Austin and Autumn are involved in the Farrar Hawthorne 4-H Club and plan on entering animals in the 4-H Fair in July as well as at the Semo District Fair and East Perry Fair later this fall.
“This will be their third year showing sheep at East Perry Fair and Semo Fair,” Petzoldt said. “They also show chickens at East Perry Fair.
