It's been described as a one-in-a-million chance, and it was certainly a first for Marlborough's Les Hensen.
"I came out here in the paddock and saw a couple of lambs, and thought, 'Ah, yeah', which twins is quite normal," the 85-year-old sheep farmer told Stuff. "But then I looked closer: 'Hello, here's another one.' Then I looked again and, 'Here's another one!'"
Mr Hansen said he has had plenty of triplets in his five decades of tending sheep herds, but never quads - until Friday.
Federated Farmers Rotorua Taupo president Alan Wills told the Herald in July, after a similar set of quadruplets was born on a Rotorua lifestyle block, that such births were "almost unheard of".
Mr Hensen said his lambs looked "quite big" and healthy. How the mum will manage, however, is still up in the air.
"It's going to be a big handful for the old sheep," he told Stuff. "She could be right...They all seem to get a drink.
"They're better on their mothers than trying to rear them on a bottle, and it's a lot of work. If she keeps looking after them, I'll leave them with her."
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