Size question

[GoatGirl123]

Never really thought about it seriously before, but we have Nigerian dwarfs and none of them are even close to 75 pounds, which apparently is the breed standard. I know some of the does had Coccidiosis as kids, and one of the bucks, but seriously NONE of them are 75 pounds. I don't have access to a scale, but I've tape weighed them. Not sure how accurate exactly it is, but we can weigh the kids so I do it based on how accurate it is for the kids. It says the kids are a few pounds heavier than they really are -- if they're seven pounds it might say 8.75, or they're 10 pounds and it says 12-14, something like that. Which means, if it says 70 pounds for our biggest doe (and I mean really biggest) . . . she's probably closer to 60. And if it says 58 for our next biggest (I told you she was the biggest!), she's more like 52. And for our smallest doe, it's around 53 (yes, she is fully grown), she's maybe 47-48. Not saying my math is exact, but those would be estimates. And for our bucks, it says a little smaller than our biggest doe usually. Their heights are all under the average too -- 19-23 for the bucks, and our biggest buck is 20 inches, whereas the shortest is 18, max. Our biggest doe is within the accepted height, but the rest? Nope. We feed them plenty, deworm them and everything . . . so why are they SO SMALL?

[GAWannabeFarmer]

Two of our does are tiny. And when I say tiny, I mean like 25 to 30 pounds at most. They're about a year old. The new little buckling we brought home at 3 months old was only an inch or two shorter than them. Our wether is our biggest goat and he is about 20 or 21 inches. That's just a guess since I've never measured him. But we thought something was wrong with our two girls until I brought some more home. They're bigger but not dramatically so. It sure makes them easy to handle and they can't hurt you when they jump up on you to beg for food.

[punchiepal]

I have a wide range of sizes . Of the older ones - Polly and Shambala are closer to the 75#, where Valentine is about 60# finally. My yr olds Xanadu is about 63# with Dora and Glinda about 45#. My smallest of the whole bunch is P'Nut. She is 2.5 yrs and just now hitting 50# but seems to carry very small genetics as her doeling this year probably hasn't hit 20#. Not sure what we are gonna do there yet.

[GoatGirl123]

Thanks, both of you! I guess it makes sense that there's no 'one size fits all' and we just got the smaller end. Not a problem for us -- like you said, easier to handle!