Alpine

The breed began as a landrace of the Alps, hardy and agile on steep, rocky ground, and was established as a breed in the Savoie region of France in the 1800s, grazing mountain pastures too steep for sheep.

The American herd dates to 1922, when nineteen does and three bucks were selected from the herds that had come down from the French Alps for winter and imported into the United States. The population bred on from that foundation in North America is recorded as the American Alpine.

They are large, hardy and adaptable, with erect ears and a straight face. The ADGA standard asks does of at least 30 inches and 135 pounds and bucks of at least 32 inches and 170 pounds; in practice does run about 110 to 155 pounds and bucks 170 to 220.

They come in every color and pattern, each with its own French name: cou blanc, white forequarters over black hindquarters; cou clair, pale forequarters; cou noir, the reverse; sundgau, black with white belly, legs and facial stripes; pied, spotted; and chamoisee, a chestnut bay with black dorsal stripe and points. That variety is a breed feature rather than a fault.

Curious, friendly with people, quick to learn, and notably stubborn. Within the herd they are highly social and aggressively competitive at the same time: Alpines are assertive, and they establish a clear herd order.

What they are kept for is a long, level lactation: Alpines milk heavily and keep milking, which is what a dairy needs more than a high peak. American Alpines average about 2,700 pounds of milk a lactation against a French commercial average near 2,100, with butterfat around 3.4 to 3.8 percent.

They handle a range of climates better than most dairy breeds and they graze and browse well.

The trade is containment. They are excellent escape artists, and fencing that holds sheep will not hold them.

Registration in the US runs through the American Dairy Goat Association, which records both French lines tracing to the imports and American Alpines bred on here; ask which an animal is.

Buy the records, not the breed average: ask for the doe's own lactation history and her dam's. And price the fencing before the goat.

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