LORD Lucan riding the winning horse in the Derby, or the discovery of life on Mars.

The odds are pretty slim for both, and similar - according to Ladbrokes - to the possibility of a ewe giving birth to six lambs at once.

So when 10-year-old Beth Waters helped her dad Richard deliver six lambs at their Gwent farm on Friday night, she was helping make a bit of history.

Her stunned grandmother, Edith Waters, told the Argus she'd not seen the like in 40 years of farming.

She said: "We've had twins and triplets before, and once we had four. We've never had five - so six is incredible."

A spokesman for Ladbrokes suggested odds in the region of 200,000 to one.

"They are about equivalent to the odds we offered for the discovery of life on Mars, and not far off what we'd offer for Lord Lucan riding the winning horse in the Derby,"he said.

Recently a farmer in England grabbed the headlines when one of his ewes gave birth to five lambs. Bookies quoted odds of 150,000 to one on that occasion.

It was all a bit of an eye-opener for young Beth when she went to the family farm - Penybanc Uchaf, in Ponthir, to help her dad deliver the lambs.

"He delivered the first, and then said'I think it's going to have another'," she said.

"There was, and then there was another, and another, and I said'oh my gosh'.

"They just kept coming - it was amazing."

Richard Waters, 38, said the babies were born in under half an hour.

He said:"My father's been farming since he was eight, and he's never seen anything like it.