A United Kingdom farm welcomed the birth of a curious five-legged lamb on a day that had the world talking. Wednesday, 2 February 2022, or 2/2/22, was known as a palindrome, meaning it reads the same forward and backward.
Born at the Whitehouse Farm in the Mothep area of Northumberland, this rare lamb is reportedly happy and healthy.
“Also if you check that, it was born on a Tuesday, so all the twos,” Heather Hogarty, part-owner of Northumberland’s Whitehouse Farm, told The Independent. “We’ve looked it up as well. To be born with a fifth leg, it’s actually one in a million.”
You could see it as soon as it was born, added Hogarty.
“It’s on the front left side, so it’s just another leg that comes out of the shoulder… We’re just keeping an eye on this one at the minute, so it might have to have the leg removed. We think as long as it is going to live a normal life, we will just keep it.”
Walking in Quinto’s footsteps
This is the second time an animal with an extra limb has been born at this particular farm. According to Hogarty, another lamb called Quinto was born with a fifth leg on April Fool’s Day in 2013. “Quinto” is an Italian noun, meaning “five.”
“They are the only two odd things we’ve had here, and we’ve been open to the public for 25 years now,” she said.
However, Quinto’s fifth leg was removed, and she went on to live a happy and healthy life until dying of natural causes.
“It is unusual, but animals having something a bit different does happen. We get many animals born with disabilities, but you don’t see them as often as sadly they get put down.”
The first five-legged sheep went on to give birth to two healthy lambs named Susie and Sophie, and neither were born with extra limbs.
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