Guernsey

Cattle first arrived on Guernsey from Brittany more than a thousand years ago, with later imports from Normandy. The founding population was a mixed bag, variable in size and in color, white, red, black, brindle and fawn among them. Several centuries of selection for the richness and volume of the milk turned that into a dairy breed.

Channel Islands cattle went to England from the 1700s and were used to establish and improve other breeds. Then the island closed its herds: imports of French cattle were forbidden by law in 1819, and exporting breeding stock became a major island industry in its own right. Cattle shows began on Guernsey in 1828.

The first North American imports came in the 1830s, with the peak in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The American breed club was formed in 1877.

The coat runs fawn to golden with white spotting, over golden skin. Most are horned; polled strains exist. On weight the sources disagree: The Livestock Conservancy gives 1,400 to 2,000 lb, while Wikipedia puts cows at 990 to 1,100 lb and bulls at 1,320 to 1,540 lb.

The milk carries about 5 percent butterfat and 3.7 percent protein, with a yield around 1,600 gallons a year. The gold color comes from exceptionally high carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, and the breed also runs naturally high in A2 beta casein, which has become a selling point of its own.

The cows are docile and sociable, and the Conservancy rates the breed novice to intermediate. Its listing carries the standard dairy warning in plain words: bulls should be handled carefully.

Dairying, specifically the kind that gets paid for what is in the milk rather than how much of it there is. Golden color, high components and the A2 profile give a bottling or cheese operation something to sell that white milk is not.

They graze well, are hardy, and adapt to a wide range of climates. Nothing about the breed demands specialist infrastructure; what it demands is a market that pays for quality, because volume is not its game.

The Guernsey sits on The Livestock Conservancy's Watch list. Annual registrations of purebred calves dropped by 60 percent between 1970 and 1990, there are fewer than 2,500 annual US registrations, and the estimated global population is under 10,000. The cause is structural: an industry paid on volume chose the Holstein, and the Guernsey's virtues stopped showing up on the check.

Ask for American Guernsey Association registration and for production records with components, not just volume. A Guernsey's value is in the butterfat, protein and carotene, so those are the numbers that price her.

The trade is yield. If your milk check pays on pounds shipped, a Holstein will beat her every month, and buying a Guernsey only makes sense where the components, the color or the A2 story can be sold for what they are worth.

Recent sale prices on HoofnHorn, where there are any, are further down this page.