Abstract The objective of this study was to develop statistical models to predict empty body weight (EBW) by body weight (BW), testing the influence of sex (females, intact males or castrated males), type of diet (suckling or post-weaning), and genotype (Saanen, ½ Boer × ½ Saanen, ¾ Boer × ¼ Saanen, and Indigenous goats). Individual records of 311 goats combined from 10 studies, with BW ranging from 4.3 to 47.4 kg were used. The EBW was computed as the BW at slaughter minus the weight of the contents of the digestive tract, urinary bladder, and biliary vesicle. Linear regression analyses were performed to develop the models, considering sex, type of diet, and genotype as fixed effects and random effect of study. CONTRAST statements were used to conduct all pairwise comparisons of fixed effects and all the statistical analyses were performed using SAS. The present study revealed that sex did not affect both intercept (P = 0.53) and slope (P = 0.19). On the other hand, the EBW prediction was affected by type of diet (P