A mutant goat with a cyclops eye in the middle of its forehead has been born on a Turkish farm.

Ahmet Kartal, 40, from the village of Gokmusa in the Turkish province of Kilis told local media he had been raising animals for 25 years and had never seen anything like it before.

The livestock farmer explained that he went to check on his animals on Thursday, 3rd February, and noticed that a baby goat had been born.

Upon closer inspection, he realised the kid’s eyes were located smack in the middle of its forehead like a cyclops.

Kartal said: “I shuddered when I first saw the kid in the barn when I went to check on it. It did not make a sound, but when I took the photo, I felt like the kid was watching me.

“I’ve been doing this job for 25 years. It’s the first time I’ve encountered anything like this. I have never seen or heard of such a thing.

“People who see it are also surprised.”

He added: “I cannot deal with it, I want the authorities to take it away and keep it alive.”

Dr Ahmet Uyar of the Veterinary Medicine Department of Hatay Mustafa Kemal University said the case is caused by a developmental anomaly called cebocephaly, which involves the presence of two separate eyes close together with a flat nose with a single nostril.

Dr Uyar said: “This condition is known scientifically as cebocephaly. Each eye should be in a separate orbital socket, but in this case, both eyes are small and are in one orbital socket. In this case, there is also an anomaly in the nose…

“In such cases, the nose may either be small or non-existent. There is also an anomaly in the ear. The lower jaw is also quite large. These are congenital anomalies. It is a condition that we occasionally encounter in both humans and animals.”