See the Sheep-Goat Hybrid That's Delighting Ireland (Video)




UPDATED 04/07/2014 at 11:00 AM EDT Originally published 04/07/2014 at 09:00 AM EDT



Of all the unnatural animal hybrids we can think of, this is perhaps the cutest: A farmer in Ireland's County Kildare has come into possession of a rare "geep" – that's half goat, half sheep.

The baby geep is the result of a randy goat sowing its wild oats among Patrick Murphy's herd of sheep. Assuming the animals couldn't mate, he let the forbidden love run its course.


In March, Murphy received the fruits of his mistake: a furry bundle of joy, which he showed off to Ireland's Farmers Journal .


Murphy told the Irish Times that he knew immediately the hybrid was not a normal baby sheep: "He's fast like a deer. You'd have to put him in a pen to catch him."


Due to their different number of chromosomes, goat-sheep liaisons rarely result in live offspring. Most pregnancies end in stillbirth, though a few hybrids have survived into adulthood.


However cute the animal looks now, the livestock of Kildare should take caution – a previous sheep-goat hybrid in Botswana had to be castrated due to its overactive sex drive, which proved "a nuisance" to the sheep and goats it would incessantly hump.


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