Mr Wallace, who had not noticed it during earlier daily lambing rounds - not that he was looking out for a geep - said it would have been sired by one of the many feral goats on the property, near Allanton. It was his father who told him that there might be such as thing as a geep. He looked it up on the internet that night and "sure enough" they do exist. A report on the natural mating of a doe with a ram which produced a female hybrid, believed to be the first authenticated report of a sheep-goat hybrid in New Zealand, was published in the New Zealand Veterinary Journal in 1990.
Dr Tom Broad, who was involved with tests on that animal and unsuccessful attempts to breed from it, said hybrid offspring from a sheep-goat mating were "extremely rare" and he likened it to breeding a mule - a horse-donkey cross. They could be referred to as a geep, or a shoat, depending on individual preference, he said. While it could occur between a ram and a doe, or a buck and a ewe, he understood it was more usual for a buck and a ewe.
The offspring were usually infertile but that was not always the case and in some very rare cases they had been known to breed. The "clincher" to confirm the geep's parentage would be to get a blood sample and do a chromosome analysis. It would also be easy to collect semen from a male geep to see if that semen was viable. Mr Wallace, who decided against castrating or tailing the animal, was not sure what would happen to the geep, which was referred to simply as Geep. "We might just keep it. It's just a novelty."
There's a news video here.
4 comments:
Looks like 3 small sheep and a big sheep with a sheeps head growing out of its side. I dont see any goatness. And NZ does not have any nuclear reactors, no matter how much the prime minister wants them, so the chances of mutation are very very small in this country.
So looks like a have to me. Looking things up on the internet is not proof of anything, oh, unless they mean wikipedia.
You should see my goldfish with a mouses head.
They are going to build a new nuclear plant some 30 km from where my parents live and less than 100 km from where I currently am. Are you saying I can look forward to some interesting mutations in a few years time? Cool!
Come, move to New Zealand...it seems like a million miles away, probably because it is, but then it is also very nice, especially where I live. Seel your car, quit your job, sell your house if you have one, grab your partner, if you have one, buy a ticket.....you only have one life, why waste it living near a nuclear power plant. Remember 3 mile island, chebnobyl (sp?) and most recently Japan and its Sue Narmi.
Its either going or glowing.
Run.
No thanks, I want my superpowers.
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