I am not a big fan of miniature animals. While I am afraid
of a 1600 lb. cow running towards me, I would hesitate to trade that full-sized
cow in for a “lowline” or miniature version. The same goes for any miniaturized
animals. Small is cute, I get it. But small isn’t always the best.
Miniaturizing full-sized animals comes with major costs.
One problem I have with miniaturizing animals is that
small-size can come with big health problems. Miniature horses are prone to
have dwarf foals. Dwarfism in horses is just as detrimental to the animal’s
health and longevity as dwarfism in humans. There are also other genetic
defects seen in miniatures that aren’t seen in full-sized animals. I am not
sure if this is a result of the miniaturization or because many smaller sized
animals are bred specifically for the pet market where good production genetics
can get thrown out the window.
Another health
problem seen in miniature animals is the inability to produce viable offspring
without huge pregnancy complications. Sometimes the females are so small that
they aren’t physiologically capable of having babies. Sure, they can get
pregnant, but those babies may not be able to get out of mom. This is
especially a problem when the miniature female is bred to a larger or
full-sized male. The babies can be too big to be born successfully. Some people
know that you should never, ever breed a larger male to a smaller female, but
some people do not know this (again, this is a rampant issue in the pet
market).
A big problem I personally have with miniaturizing
full-sized livestock is that you tend to trade in production ability for small
size. To me, this is not a fair trade-off. Why would I raise and feed a mini-cow
for two years and get half of the meat off of it than I would a full-sized one?
I don’t see the benefit. Either way, it’s still a cow. Either way, you still
have to feed it and care for it as if it were a regular cow. It may eat a
little less, but it still shits just as much!
The worst problem in my mind with miniature livestock is the
tendency people have to cross breed them with full-sized animals. They think by
crossing a Nigerian Dwarf dairy goat with a Nubian dairy goat they are going to
get a smaller goat that produces lots of milk. Actually the opposite usually
holds true – they get a large-ish goat that produces a crappy amount of milk.
And if you cross a Nubian with a lovely roman nose and long ears to a Nigerian
with a straight nose and straight ears, you wind up with a really ugly goat
with a big nose and stupid looking ears. I really have no love in my heart for
so called “mini-Nubians”, can’t you tell?! The same problem works with
mini-cows mixed with full-sized. You don’t get a ¾ sized cow, you just get a
big cow with teeny, short legs. Yuck. And don’t give me that BS that it is an “F1
hybrid” and that is why it’s as fugly as a port-o-potty. I am not buying it!
What I really don’t get is that mini-animals are usually
more expensive than their full-sized counterparts. Why would I pay twice as
much for half as much animal?? It doesn’t make sense. A correlation to this
price swap is that some people sell their stunted animals as “minis”. If a goat
is underweight and stunted, it’s not a mini, no matter how small it is. IT’S A
RUNT! Unless you actually bred one of its parents to an actual mini, it is
never going to be a real mini. Sometimes I even see people sell immature
full-sized animals as adult minis. They say that the rabbit is a Netherland
Dwarf adult when it is actually a baby Californian. Boy, won’t the new owners
be surprised when their “Dwarf” grows up to be 20 lbs!
I do believe that miniature animals that are an actual breed
are okay. If they evolved naturally over millions of years to be smaller in
size, that’s fine. Shetland ponies and purebred Nigerian Dwarf goats are okay.
They evolved to be that size and no humans purposefully bred them to be small. It’s
when humans get their hands in the mix that miniaturization becomes a problem.
Some animals are meant to be full-size. Some are meant to be smaller. Let’s
just leave them be the size they evolved to be.
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