Terry Turnage has 23 children with 17 different women, while Richard M. Colbert has 25 children with 18 women. But Desmond Hatchett takes the record with 30 children with 11 women.

On rare occasions, they pay a few dollars to the long-suffering mothers but mostly leave the state to pick up the slack - while one eludes his responsibilities altogether thanks to a stint in prison.

The latest deadbeat dad to emerge from the state is Turnage, who was summoned before a judge over child support payments for his 23 kids by 17 different women - but didn't show up to court.

One of the mothers, who had spent nearly eight years with Turnage, said her knees buckled when a prosecutor told her that the father of her child had 20 other children.

'During the whole relationship, I only knew of four children,' Latoya Shields told WREG. 'At that time, three years ago, my child was the 21st child. Yeah, that would be overwhelming for anybody.'