Tech & Biz

NZ Plans 4-Nippled Sheep

by Jordan Yerman | March 21, 2007 at 09:57 am

441 views | 10 Recommendations | 1 comment

What we have here is human interests at cross purposes with nature. More lambs than teats means evolution, whilst teats for all lambs means more lambs for human-food. The second paragraph of the article begs the question, how have New Zealand's lambs become more fertile? One doubts that it is a random occurrence, vis-a-vis their relationship to their human predators/keepers.

New Zealand scientists plan to tackle the thorny problem of ewes producing more lambs than they have nipples to accommodate, by simply upping mum's teat-count, Stuff.co.nz reports.

Apparently, NZ's ovine population has become more fertile over the past 10 years and females often drop triplets. AgResearch Invermay scientist George Davis solemnly explained: "A triplet, if he is the runt of the litter, is usually doomed."

Click here to find out more!

"Four-Nippled Sheep" is a great name for a band, but I am not sold on genetically-modified animals.