# What Is Wrong With This Article?



## frustratedearthmother (Dec 14, 2018)

Noticed an article posted on Farmers Weekly website.  Anybody else notice something not quite right?

_"It’s 6.30am in early October and Karoo farmer Flippie Loock heads out to feed his Savannah goats. The month-long kidding season is coming to an end and soon all 500 of his ewes will have kidded. In September alone, 400 of the ewes produced 680 kids – including 37 triplets and one quadruplet – and by the time all 500 have kidded, he will have reared approximately 840 kids_."

https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/animals/turning-things-around-with-savannah-goats/

SMH...


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## Rammy (Dec 14, 2018)

I was never good at word math problems.


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## frustratedearthmother (Dec 14, 2018)

Hint - it's not about the math.


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## Bruce (Dec 14, 2018)

Um, Dad is a RAM??? Um, er. MOM is a sheep? 
Someone is VERY confused about their animals.


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## Goat Whisperer (Dec 14, 2018)

What?! Goats are ewes? Ewes are kidding?  Someone was a little too tired when writing this article. Looks like the writer could use a little more coffee.


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## B&B Happy goats (Dec 14, 2018)

Was just getting ready to say that lol, would love to see a picture of a doeing kidding a ewe....


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## Baymule (Dec 14, 2018)

The goats are ewes? This was obviously written by a city slicker that only experience with livestock has been in a petting zoo.


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## Rammy (Dec 14, 2018)

Oh. Missed that. Guess Im tired, too.


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## Bruce (Dec 14, 2018)

Baymule said:


> The goats are ewes?


Must be some kind of GMO product.


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## frustratedearthmother (Dec 14, 2018)

My DH went for the math angle when I first read it to him....but...uh... yea.   Goat ewes kidding...


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## Southern by choice (Dec 15, 2018)

oh brother  smh


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## farmerjan (Dec 15, 2018)

Understand something, in different parts of the world, and different countries, sometimes the female is called different things than what we call them here.  I am not surprised that a former sheep farmer would call his female goats the same as he called his female sheep.  
Here in the US a male sheep is often called a "buck sheep" even though the "technically correct" term is a ram.  Many older farmers I have been around have called the male herd sire a buck sheep.  
In England an intact male in the cattle species at the yearling age is often called a bullock;  but in other places it can be a yearling steer.... 
Since they got the kidding part correct, I think that maybe the term there is interchangeable with the female sheep and female goats.  

Lord knows when I have been tired or just in a rush I have said that the pigs or the sheep calved, then had to correct myself ...... mostly because I first think in cattle terms.


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