Question: are goats and sheep in the same family

Answer: Yes, A sheep--goat hybrid (called a geep in popular media or sometimes a shoat) is the hybrid offspring of a sheep and a goat. Although sheep and goats seem similar and can be mated, they belong to different genera in the subfamily Caprinae of the family Bovidae. Sheep belong to the genus Ovis and have 54 chromosomes, while goats belong to the genus Capra and have 60 chromosomes. The offspring of a sheep-goat pairing is generally stillborn. Despite widespread shared pasturing of goats and sheep, hybrids are very rare, indicating the genetic distance between the two species. Though sometimes called ``geep'', they are not to be confused with sheep--goat chimera, which are artificially created by combining the embryos of a goat and a sheep.