Jersey

What do Jersey cattle look like?

The Jersey is a small breed of dairy cattle. A cow on the island weighs about 350 to 400 kg and stands some 115 to 120 cm at the withers, the bony ridge between the shoulder blades. Bulls reach roughly 600 to 700 kg. Brown is the base colour, running from pale tan through fawn to nearly black, and purebred animals usually carry a paler ring round the muzzle, a dark switch (the long tuft at the end of the tail) and black hooves. Colour rules have been relaxed in recent years, which broadens the gene pool. Cows are calm and docile; bulls can be aggressive and hard to predict.

Where does the Jersey come from?

The breed takes its name from Jersey, the largest of the British Channel Islands, and was shaped there. Its ancestors were apparently brought across from the nearby Norman mainland in France. By about 1700 the island stock was being described as a breed in its own right. For more than two centuries outside blood was kept out: a law of 1789 forbade imports, and the ban lasted until 2008. The rule was meant to stop a fall in the price paid for exported stock, and it also allowed a more controlled breeding programme. Work on selection by Sir John Le Couteur helped bring the Royal Jersey Agricultural and Horticultural Society into being in 1833.

What the Jersey is known for

Jerseys cope with heat better than most breeds that come from temperate countries, and they settle in a wide range of climates and conditions. They are thrifty: a lighter cow needs less feed for its own upkeep than a heavy one, so a farm can carry more milking animals on the same ground, and the breed grazes well. Calving is usually straightforward, with fewer difficult births than many breeds, which is why Jerseys are used in crossbreeding. Fertility is high. Cows are calm and docile; bulls may turn unpredictable or aggressive.

How the Jersey is bred and kept

Because the island herd was closed to imports for so long, breeding happened inside a narrow gene pool. A herd book was proposed in 1866, when a motion by Colonel Le Couteur asked that pedigrees of bulls, cows and heifers be written down for members of the society. Prizes for herd book animals followed in 1869. The law changed in July 2008, when bull semen from other breeds could be brought in, though only pure semen produces calves that may be entered in the Jersey Herd Book. In 2010 semen from a bull of mixed blood reached the island and about 100 cows were served; those calves stayed out of the book.

What the Jersey is kept for

Milk is the main product. It carries a high butterfat level, around 4.84 per cent, and protein near 3.95 per cent, and it has a faint yellow colour. Beside Holstein milk it holds some 20 per cent more calcium, 18 per cent more protein and 29 per cent more milk fat. Because the cows are small and cheap to keep, dairymen favour them, and their easy calving makes them useful in crosses with other dairy breeds and with beef breeds. In Nepal the breed is worked as a draught animal. Selling cattle and semen abroad has long been an important source of income for the island.

The land and climate of the Jersey

Jersey is a temperate island, but the breed has proved adaptable and tolerates heat well, which is unusual for cattle developed in a cool climate. That flexibility is why the animals travel well and are now found around the world. Their light frame suits smaller farms and poorer grazing: they need less to keep going and make good use of pasture. They have been exported so widely that several countries, among them France, Denmark, the United States and New Zealand, built up separate national populations of their own.

Who keeps the Jersey

Jersey cattle belong to the farming community of the island of Jersey. Each of the twelve parishes once ran its own shows, and the Royal Jersey Agricultural and Horticultural Society has long stood at the centre of breed affairs, keeping the herd book and judging the best animals. The States of Jersey, the island government, took stock censuses and passed the laws that governed imports. Island herds have shrunk to about 23, and those who keep them today breed for milk and for the show ring. Abroad the breed is in the hands of dairy farmers in many countries.

The Jersey at fairs and festivals

Shows have been part of island life for well over a century. For many decades each of the twelve parishes held spring, summer and autumn shows, and the winners then met at the main events run by the Royal Jersey Agricultural and Horticultural Society. A prize rosette's colour was said to fix the export value of the cow that wore it. The society now runs two shows a year, and only a few of the 23 herds still on the island, perhaps half a dozen, send animals. The West Show Association also holds a Jersey cattle show.

Custom and folk tradition

Cows were once handed over as dowry when a marriage linked families from Jersey and Guernsey, though this was never common. Islanders tell of how the import ban came about: cattle were landed from France and passed on to England to dodge a tariff, and the flood of stock, some of it poor, pushed prices down and damaged the reputation of island cattle. In local memory the colour of a winning rosette decided what a cow would fetch abroad.

Keeping Jersey cattle

Cows on the island are kept on locally produced feed and do well on ordinary pasture. Because they are small, their bodies lose heat quickly, so calves need closer watching than those of bigger dairy breeds when the weather is cold. Cows are also more prone than average to milk fever, the calcium shortage that can follow calving, known to vets as postparturient hypocalcaemia.

Related breeds and crosses

Two other Channel Island breeds share the Jersey's home. The Guernsey is still kept; the Alderney is extinct. Jerseys are often crossed with other dairy breeds and with beef breeds, mainly to cut the risk of injury at calving. In the United States a rough distinction is drawn between the larger, coarser American Jersey, bred above all for yield, and the smaller Island type, sometimes called the Miniature Jersey.

Numbers, conservation and the herd book

Stock was counted on the island in 1866: 12,037 cattle, among them 611 bulls. Shipments to the United States began around 1850 and grew, so that by 1910 more than a thousand head a year crossed the Atlantic to that market alone. The American Jersey Cattle Club, a breed society, was set up there in 1868. The herd book that members agreed to keep in 1866 still decides pedigree today: only calves from genetically pure semen may be entered in it. Since July 2008 semen of any breed may be brought to the island.

From the Jersey

Questions people ask about Jersey

Good reading and sources

• BBC News - Non-pure bull semen imported into JerseyBBC, Article

• Jersey cattle on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data