Sledding with the Boys

[Nanno]

Twice his body weight is a good estimate in normal conditions. I think you're just going to have to experiment and see what your boys are up to and also use your best judgement given the type of terrain, the length of the trail, and the conditions present at the time. A goat can pull a lot more weight on a level, packed snow trail than on one that is steep, has rocks and deadfall, or where he's having to break trail as he goes. Goats wear down especially fast when they have to break trail because their pointy toes like to post-hole all the way to the ground, giving them poor traction and causing them to flounder easily. If you know to plan ahead for this you should be ok. A big mistake would be to take a full load up the mountain on a packed trail and not plan for fresh snow to fall before your return trek. If you have several goats then it's easy to have them take turns pulling so everyone gets a break if conditions turn south.