Alderney

What do Alderney cattle look like?

The Alderney was a small breed kept for milk, with the fine bone and light build that suit a dairy animal. It had a look that struck people as somewhat like a deer. Its horns were short, and it was a taurine breed, so it carried no hump. The coat was not fixed: dun, fawn, light red and yellow all appeared, and some animals had white patches while others had none. Cows and bulls are both recorded in old pictures, a cow engraved in 1834 and a bull illustrated in 1860.

Where does the Alderney come from?

Its name comes from Alderney, one of the Channel Islands, and it is counted with the Jersey and the Guernsey as one of the three Channel Island breeds. Cattle are believed to have reached the islands in the tenth and eleventh centuries, possibly around AD 960, when monks from Mont-Saint-Michel are said to have arrived at the request of Richard I of Normandy to strengthen the islanders against pirate raids. Those monks are thought to have brought Norman or Breton cattle, perhaps like the present-day Froment du Léon of Brittany. Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Alderney was a loose label in Britain for stock from any of the islands.

What the Alderney is known for

The breed's standing rested on its milk rather than on any noted hardiness or temperament. Butter made from its cream was highly regarded, and an account from 1909 called it the best butter cow in the world, praising both the amount of milk and the cream in it; by 1939 the same words had been given to the Jersey. The animals were small and lightly built, which suited island farms, and the fat in the milk was the quality that made them worth keeping.

How the Alderney is bred and kept

On the islands these cattle worked as oxen and were milked as well. When horses took over ploughing and hauling, the herds were bred for milk alone, with selection aimed at yield and butterfat. Export to Britain was steady: from the seventeenth century, and certainly by 1724, Channel Island cattle were shipped over in numbers, and by the mid-1770s about 900 head a year went under the Alderney name, roughly two thirds of them from Jersey. On the mainland, large estates kept them as ornament in the grounds of country houses; their milk and butter were valued all the same.

What the Alderney is kept for

The Channel Island cattle were working animals at first, used mainly for draught and also milked. After horses replaced oxen the purpose narrowed to milk. The Alderney's milk was high in fat and well suited to butter, and butter was what the breed was prized for. The Alderney also fed into other breeds: it contributed mainly to the Ayrshire and the South Devon, and it may have had a hand in others as well.

The land and climate of the Alderney

The breed belonged to the Channel Islands, which lie between Britain and France, and to Alderney above all, the island north of the other main ones. Island farming meant limited grazing and a mild, sea-influenced climate. Cattle were also shipped to mainland Britain, where many lived in the parks of large estates rather than in working dairy herds. Their light frame and modest size fitted the small pastures of the islands, and the milk they gave from that grazing was rich enough for butter.

Who keeps the Alderney

The cattle were kept by Channel Island farmers, a small community. In 1910 seventy-five farmers on Alderney still held Alderney cattle, most of them with very few animals: about half the holdings had no more than four cows, and just two farmers kept more than twenty head. Mainland breeders and estate owners also kept the breed in their parkland. Later its story is bound up with the islanders themselves: in wartime the whole population of Alderney left for Guernsey, taking the cattle along, and the remaining stock was then absorbed into the Guernsey breed.

Related breeds and crosses

The Alderney was one of three Channel Island breeds, with the Jersey and the Guernsey. It gave to the Ayrshire and the South Devon. The Suffolk Dun and the Irish Kerry may also have something of it in them, and the Dairy Shorthorn, whose forerunner was the Holderness, is another possible descendant. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the name Alderney covered cattle from any of the islands, so the term was used for Jersey and Guernsey stock as well.

Numbers, conservation and the herd book

Numbers were already low early in the twentieth century. In 1910 the register held 580 animals, kept by seventy-five farmers. Most of these holdings were tiny: roughly half had four or fewer cattle, and only two carried more than twenty head. The breed has since been lost and is classed as extinct. Its influence lasts through the British breeds developed from it, chiefly the Ayrshire and the South Devon, and possibly the Irish Kerry, the Suffolk Dun and the Dairy Shorthorn. The last stock went to Guernsey with the islanders and merged into the Guernsey breed.

Questions people ask about Alderney

Good reading and sources

• Alderney cattle on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data