The Guernsey is a small, cream-and-brown breed of dairy cattle, renowned for the high butterfat content of its milk, as well as its hardiness and genial disposition.
As its name implies, the Guernsey was bred on the British Channel Island of Guernsey. It descended from cattle stock brought over from nearby Normandy, and was first recorded as a separate breed around 1700. In 1789, imports of foreign cattle into Guernsey were forbidden by law to maintain the purity of the breed, although exports of cattle and semen were for a while an important economic resource for the island.
With an average weight slightly greater than the 900 pounds (450 kg) of the Jersey cow, Guernsey cows are small, producing more milk per unit of body weight than any other breed. Bulls are also small by standards of domestic cattle, but can be surprisingly aggressive. They will dominate the more docile Jerseys, if inadvertently allowed to mix.
Overseas farmers who preferred maximum quality, immunity to disease and high milk production selected Guernseys; the breed is well-established in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere.
The term Alderney is obsolete, the cattle of Alderney being mainly a type of the Guernsey breed.
No lover of cattle can view these quaint creatures without a feeling of satisfaction that the efforts made to resuscitate a breed which has many useful qualities to commend it have been successful, and that the extinction which threatened it in the 'eighties of last century is no longer imminent.
Guernseycattle are native to the islands of Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Herm.
CATTLE, common term for the domesticated herbivorous mammals that constitute the genus Bos, of the family BOVIDAE, raised for their meat, milk, and for draft purposes; they are also of great importance for leather, glue, gelatin, and other products they yield.
The concept and formulation of modern breeds of cattle began in the midregions of England, in northern Europe, and on the Channel Islands during the mid-1800s, and most modern breeds were formed in the latter half of that century.
The Guernsey is fawn, with white markings and a yellow skin, and the Jersey may vary from a light gray to a very dark fawn, usually solid in color but sometimes with white spots.
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