No, it’s a geep!
Is it a goat...? Is it a sheep...?
IT might sound bleating mad but a goat has given birth to twin ‘geeps’ – a goat/sheep hybrid – in Co. Mayo.
Nanny goat Daisy fell pregnant with the pair after a week-long dalliance with a Cheviot ram.
Angela Bermingham – the proud owner of the unusual progeny – now intends to keep Daisy’s offspring as pets rather than selling them on as meat.
Her geeps, which she nicknamed ‘This’ and ‘That’, may, according to livestock experts, be the world’s only surviving twin sheep/goat hybrids.
Michael Holmes, father of Padraic Holmes, who owns the ram believed to have impregnated Daisy on the Holmes farm at Murneen, Claremorris, has done extensive research on geeps since This and That came gambolling into the world some weeks ago.
‘To have one geep survive is rare,’ he explained, ‘but to have two fit and healthy twins running around must be regarded as something of a miracle.’
Ms Bermingham, who is originally from Bury in England, said there were no roaming billy goats around who could have mated with Daisy and that she knew there was ‘something going on’ when Daisy, ‘a bit of gallivanter’, jumped a fence outside her cottage into land owned by Mr Holmes, where a flock of ewes, which were being serviced by a Cheviot ram, were grazing.
‘When she obviously became pregnant I knew immediately what had happened,’ she said.
Hugging the two extremely agile little animals, Ms Bermingham took a close-up look and reckoned: ‘Well, they’re not goats and they’re not lambs either.
‘They were born with no horns and a full set of sharp teeth.’
Michael Holmes, a member of Mayo County Council, expressed certainty that the curious looking little animals are the product of a relationship between Daisy the goat and his son’s ram.
A long-time livestock farmer, he is a former chairman of the Irish Farmers’ Association’s National Sheep Committee.
‘These little geeps are very unusual. I have never seen twins before and I have seen a lot of sheep all over Ireland and all over the world,’ he said.