I don't know about other places but around here it seems that Pygmy and Nigerian is an interchangeable term for dwarf goats. They are two different breeds, though they look similar they do have their differences. Many around here also purposely cross breed the two. Is there a good reason why you would cross breed them?
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I can't think of any good reason to cross them. The offspring wouldn't be worth much because they're not purebred. Pygmies don't produce nearly as much as NDs, nor do they have good teats, and they have a nasty habit of needing c-sections -- and this info comes from several people who switched from raising pygmies to NDs. I even know a vet who quit raising pygmies because he got tired of doing c-sections. Pygmies used to be raised for milk up until about 20 years ago, but now they're just raised for pets. There might be a herd here or there that still milks them, but there are almost no pygmies left in AGS -- and those were the milking pygmies, which I've been told are/were quite different than the NPGA pygmies.
I've heard that pygmy goats have good milk production, but I don't know what other than smaller versions of an NDG and possibly personality would be a good reason to mix the two?
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