Everything scales down with this breed
A Nigerian Dwarf doe typically weighs fifty to seventy-five pounds, and her daily feed scales with her: roughly two to three pounds of hay covers her forage needs, within the usual pattern of three to four pounds of dry feed for every hundred pounds of body weight. That forage should be good quality and always available, since goats this size lose ground quickly in cold weather and browse and hay keep the rumen working between meals. The arithmetic error to avoid is feeding her like a small version of a full-size doe. She is a complete dairy goat in miniature, and her bucket should be miniature too.
Milking a very small, very rich producer
Nigerian Dwarfs are genuine dairy goats, known for milk that is unusually rich, and a doe in milk earns grain, but in portions that look startlingly small to owners used to standard breeds. A half pound to a pound and a half across the day, split between milkings and matched to her actual yield, covers most milking Nigerians. Feed it on the stand, weigh it with a kitchen scale until your eye learns the volume, and resist topping up because she is enthusiastic; enthusiasm is a personality trait of the breed, not a nutritional signal. Does in the last weeks of pregnancy get a modest increase, while dry does in good condition return to hay, browse, minerals, and water alone.
Wethers and bucks: where grain does harm
Pet wethers are where Nigerian feeding most often goes wrong. A wether has no production job, and grain-heavy rations raise his risk of painful urinary stones, a genuine emergency in a small goat. His diet should be grass hay, browse, loose goat minerals, and water, with treats limited to a few leaves or a tiny handful of something appropriate on occasion. Bucks need little more outside breeding season. If a wether is straining, dribbling, or crying when trying to urinate, that is a same-day veterinary call, not a wait-and-see situation, and no ration adjustment at home substitutes for getting him seen.
Condition is easy to miss at this size
A Nigerian hides condition changes under a round-looking frame, and a few ounces of fat is a meaningful share of her body. Pick her up regularly if she tolerates it, or run hands over ribs, spine, and hips weekly, and keep a simple weight tape record if your herd is large enough that memory blurs. Kids need their own consideration: growing youngsters require better protein than dry adults and should not have to compete with pushy does at the hay rack. Multiple feeding stations, spaced apart, keep a herd of small goats honest, because the boldest Nigerian will happily eat three rations and convince you the pen was fed fairly.
Minerals, water, and small-scale routines
Loose minerals formulated for goats should be out at all times in a feeder sized so small muzzles can reach and rain cannot ruin the supply. Water buckets need refreshing often; little goats foul little buckets quickly, and intake drops fast when water tastes stale. Hay racks at Nigerian height reduce waste and keep feed out of bedding. Because every quantity in this breed is small and easy to improvise wrongly, a written ration per pen saves the herd from generous guesswork, and KinsLe Care Teams store exactly that, assigning the weighed grain, hay, and water duties so each helper feeds the same tiny amounts.