You are to carryout genetic characterization of indigenous goats in a geographical location, but have only limited resources for a large scale study and yet need to obtain meaningful results that can contribute to science.
Minimum sample size is alteast 30 unrelated individuals with 25 microsatellite markers (if u r doing microsatellite characterization) , one must try to get as more as possible to get more statistically accurate result, decreasing the sample size to low numbers might not be able to account for all the polymorphism available on different loci , so try to maximize it as much as you can.
The size of your cohort will matter less if you can compare to a larger control group.
Thank you for the valueable input sofar. It has helped to refocus my research. I will be very glad to receive all your invaluable comments.