Irish sheep farmer Paddy Murphy noticed a goat mating with one of his white Cheviot sheep a while back, but thought little of it. Until, that is, a suspiciously goat-like baby emerged from the mama sheep five months later.
"I only have white-faced Cheviot sheep, and when this one came out, it was black," Murphy told Irish Farmers Journal about delivering the babe one night. "That sometimes happens. But the next morning I said to myself, this isn't a lamb at all, it's more like a goat."
"It was moving a bit too quickly for a lamb, its legs were very long and he even has horns like a goat," he said. Such hybrids are considered highly unique; when a successful mating does occur between a goat and a sheep, the offspring is usually stillborn.
When asked if he’d consider breeding more, Murphy said, “Oh no, this is a pure shock to the system … a one-off thing.”
Murphy, who also acts as proprietor of the Ballymore Eustace pub in County Kildare, Ireland, said he is planning to start a competition to name the baby to raise funds to help a sick child in the village.
Behold the geep in all of its goat-sheep glory in the video below:
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