However, what if I told you that you could visit a petting zoo in Arizona that was home to an entirely new breed of animal that you’ve never even heard of?
Sounds hard to believe, right?
Well, believe it.
My Petting Zoo is in Scottsdale, Arizona, and it is likely home to the state’s only living geep–whose name is Butterfly.
What’s a geep, you ask? Well, you’ve heard of ligers, right? They’re a crossbreed between a lion and a tiger.
And the same goes for a mule–it’s simply a cross between a horse and a donkey.
A geep happens when a goat successfully mates with a sheep.
The owner of My Petting Zoo, Priscilla Motola, has lots of sheep and goats. However, she was pretty surprised to find her sheep named Mama was pregnant.
Motola told reporters from USA Today that “We were not even aware that she was pregnant because we don’t have a male [sheep].”
Both the sheep and the goats on the farm eat alfalfa so it shouldn’t be too hard for Butterfly to enjoy herself.
After looking into geeps a bit more, Motola found that they are pretty rare. One reason is hybrid animals are sterile when they are born and can’t reproduce.
For example, if you wanted to have another mule on your farm, then you’d have to mate one of your horses with a donkey.
You can’t just have your mules mate because they can’t get pregnant.
