The growth of domestic goats and sheep: A meta study with Bertalanffy-Pütter models

Growth literature often uses the Brody, Gompertz, Verhulst, and von Bertalanffy models. Is there a rationale for the preference of these classical named models? The versatile five-parameter Bertalanffy-Pütter (BP) model generalizes these models. We revisited peer-reviewed publications from the years 1970–2019 that fitted growth models to together 122 mass-at-age data of sheep and goats from 19 countries and studied the best-fit BP-models using the least-squares method. None of the named models was ever best-fitting. However, for 70% of the data a single non-sigmoidal model had an acceptable fit (normalized root mean squared error 〈 5% and F-ratio test 〉 5% in comparison to the best-fit): the Brody model. The inherently non-sigmoidal character was further underlined, as there were only 39% of the data, where the best-fitting BP-model had a discernible inflection point. For these data, conclusions of biological interest could be drawn from the sigmoidal best-fit BP-models: the maximal weight gain per day was about 55% higher than the natal weight gain per day.