{"id":13697,"date":"2014-04-06T07:36:59","date_gmt":"2014-04-06T07:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/irish-farmer-claims-to-have-bred-goat-sheep\/"},"modified":"2014-04-06T07:40:31","modified_gmt":"2014-04-06T07:40:31","slug":"irish-farmer-claims-to-have-bred-goat-sheep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/irish-farmer-claims-to-have-bred-goat-sheep\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish Farmer Claims to Have Bred Goat-Sheep Hybrid"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n

{{An Irish farmer who claims to have bred a cross between a sheep and a goat is launching a charity competition to find a name for the rare creature.}}<\/p>\n

Paddy Murphy, who also runs a village pub in Ballymore Eustace, County Kildare, has been overwhelmed by the interest after a YouTube video of his new arrival went viral.<\/p>\n

The hybrid \u2013 sometimes referred to as a geep or a shoat \u2013 is believed to be extremely unusual.<\/p>\n

Murphy said he delivered the animal late at night, and it was only the next morning that he realized it was a bit different.<\/p>\n

“I only have white-faced Cheviot sheep, and when this one came out it was black,” he said.<\/p>\n

“That sometimes happens. But the next morning I said to myself this isn’t a lamb at all, it’s more like a goat.”<\/p>\n

He added: “It was moving a bit too quickly for a lamb, its legs were very long and he even has horns like a goat.”<\/p>\n

Murphy said he had noticed a goat mating with his sheep on the mountainside but assumed nothing would come of it.<\/p>\n

The newborn has been the talk of the village pub.<\/p>\n

A video by the Irish Farmers Journal posted on YouTube has reached more than 16,000 hits.<\/p>\n

Murphy said he was hoping to raise money for a sick child in the village with a competition for the best name for his young geep.<\/p>\n

And he has invited scientists to come to his farm to prove the rare cross-breed. “I have no interest in that side of it at all, but if someone wants to come and do tests they are welcome,” he said.<\/p>\n

Similar crossings have been reported before in Chile, Jamaica, Malta and Botswana, where scientists found that a hybrid \u2013 known as the Toast of Botswana \u2013 had 57 chromosomes, a number in between that of sheep and goats.<\/p>\n

In most cases the offspring are stillborn.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Source: the guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{An Irish farmer who claims to have bred a cross between a sheep and a goat is launching a charity competition to find a name for the rare creature.}} Paddy Murphy, who also runs a village pub in Ballymore Eustace, County Kildare, has been overwhelmed by the interest after a YouTube video of his new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000051480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-13697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-technology","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000051480,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13697.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13697.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13697.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13697.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13697.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13697.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000051480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13697"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=13697"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=13697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}