Hitting It Big With Miniature Farm Animals : Pets: Intrigued by cattle as housemates? Remember, there’s a difference between a doggy and a little dogie.

If New MacDonald has a farm, it’s likely to be in the suburbs. So he or she will need a smaller menagerie.

How about a cow three feet tall or a grown pig that sits in your lap?

Miniature cattle, horses, sheep and donkeys make fine pets, said Maureen Neidhardt, editor of the Rare Breeds Journal in Crawford, Neb. They’re practical as livestock as well.

“Miniatures fit neatly on a small farm. They require less food, smaller shelter. Everything about them is more manageable,” Neidhardt said.

Suburbanites are going for tiny livestock everywhere, she said, although like others in the business, she declined to venture estimates, much less hard numbers on the popularity of little livestock.

There’s a wide, if smallish, selection.

Cattleman Russ Largent in Fort Davis, Tex., has bred a line of miniature cows that resemble tiny Herefords and stand about three feet tall from hoof to shoulder. He said the critters are the most economical way to produce beef, especially in the cramped suburbs.

“They don’t have to have the heavy equipment or fences to hold them in,” he said. “They’re very docile in nature, and it works out real well.”

Anyone intrigued by the notion of cattle as pets needs to remember there’s a difference between a doggy and a little dogie.

Said Caroline Christman of the American Minor Breeds Conservancy in Pittsboro, N.C.: “We had a real run of folks a couple years ago who wanted miniature cows to come in the house. And you know little cows are going to make little messes.”

Cute animals also can be costly.

Largent’s itty-bitty cows sell for $1,000 a head. At Prairie Gold Exotics in Goodrich, N.D., the price of a 34-inch donkey--from shoulder to hoof and weighing from 250 to 450 pounds--starts at $500. Females, called jennies, go for $2,000.

Breeder Stephanie Stober also raises 18-inch-high sheep, which weigh from 40 to 100 pounds. She sells them for $800 and up, 10 times the price of a standard-size animal.

Miniature horses range from $5,000 for a 4-month-old filly to $15,000 for a stallion. A mature animal measures eight hands, or 34 inches from hoof to the highest part of the shoulder.

Some miniature horse fanciers raise their animals for competition, like standard-size show horses.

North Dakota breeder Sherryl Fike said miniature horses are easy to train because they are eager to please.

“They lie right on your lap,” said Fike, who runs a herd of waist-high horses at Bowdon. “They can’t get enough attention.”

Stober said miniature donkeys are sweet and friendly, although some have a stubborn streak.

“I wouldn’t say you can house-train a sheep,” she added. “But you can train them to eat out of your hand and follow you around.”

In the 16th Century, tiny horses and donkeys were bred to perform special tasks. Shetland ponies, for example, were used to pull coal carts in mine shafts.

Prehistoric horses were no bigger than a dog. But some contemporary miniature sheep and cattle are entirely new breeds.

“They’ve just been selected to be tiny, cute and expensive,” said Christman of the Minor Breeds Conservancy.

Offering a warning to would-be buyers, she said: “When you select for size you can get some negative traits as well. You’re breeding runts to runts.”

Breeders should be mindful of keeping reins on supply if they want their herds to stay in demand.

Craig Leas and his partners at Lake View Exotics paid $1,700 for their first Vietnamese potbellied pig in 1990 when the animals were in vogue. They got out of the wee little piggy business when prices dropped last fall to $10 a pig.

“There was a lot of supply and not much demand,” Leas said. “It’s just not your ordinary pet, and a lot of people didn’t accept them.”

Vietnamese potbellied pigs are between 14 inches and 17 inches tall and weigh between 40 and 100 pounds, about a tenth the size of mature swine.

“These pigs will stay real little until you start feeding them Twinkies and treats,” Christman said. “A lot of these little pigs were sold as 30-pound animals but grew to be 75 pounds. And that’s way too big to sit on your lap.”

Neidhardt, of the Rare Breeds Journal, said there were only about 20 potbellied pigs in this country in 1987. But they reproduce rapidly.

“While the numbers were low, it was a breeder’s market,” Neidhardt said. “Lots and lots of people made lots and lots of money with pigs.”

Other breeders exploited the situation.

“If they had just been calm about it--put out, say, 10 or 12 a year--they’d have been doing great,” Neidhardt said. “But we had some people sitting on 80 pigs. They killed their own golden goose.”