I realise I am resurrecting this out of the archives but it seemed the most appropriate place to post.
I have had my small ‘pygmy’ herd for 7 years, they are all registered ‘pygmy goats’ but I have often had thought re pygmy v Nigerian dwarf and what jinglejoys makes sense – how did I miss this post at the time.
As some of you will know we do take our goats to shows it is virtually always that the smaller, stocky, wide chested, square back end goat does better than the slightly slimmer, longer backed goat.
My findings (for what it’s worth) are that the longer backed goat (which I am attributing to the Nigerian Dwarf) kids without trouble and the Pygmy is the one who has issues. Even though I enjoy showing I am not going to breed to get shorter and shorter as I would much rather a productive animal who didn’t need medical intervention to kid. It also makes sense on the milk production front – we had Prue who reared chunky triplets on her own and always seemed to have tons of milk (often ‘spurting out’ if she sat down).
Looking at the images online there are obviously 2 different breeds which here have been lumped together as one but the original traits seem clear in some.