Any Guernseys out there???

I have been wanting to get a few Guernseys on this farm. After looking around I found out there isnt many herds left. This is sad. At one time this area had quite a few Guernsey farms. The one I now live on once had 65 golden milk makers producing twice a day. I would like to find a few heifers to buy. Anyone know where a milking herd could be found?? Al

Rare in our area, I used to have a herd many years ago.
Remember when most Holstein farms had a couple Guernseys for house milk!

My county, Waukesha County, WI was once home to 60000 dairy cows, half of which were Guernseys. Today, we have about 380,000 people and about 3000 cows.

Where are you located? I can think of a couple herds with some Guernseys left.

Where are you at not Guernsey but jerseys for sale organic and rotational grazing super nice herd very friendly sw wisc. Owner retired and selling out .Might part with a couple.
Remember my grandma had 2 Guernseys boys never put a machine on them they were the house cows and grandma milked by hand. I had a mixed herd Holstein, jersey, Guernsey and a blue and white Holstein

we had jerseys and guernseys when i was a baby ,,.. they left when i was 4-5 yrs old ,,. my mother cried ,,., said they were such sweet heart good natured cows,,. their milk sure must a been good for raising strong good hearted kids ,,. none of the 8 of us ever broke a bone bouncing off of everthing , from pikin fites with thunderstorms and charging into trees ,. good teeth too . never had a serious illness other than german measles and my brother got appendecitus,..

Sweet and good nature you got that right except when they got a baby i still got scars when one momma didn't appreciate me admiring her calf i can't remember exactly what happened all i remember was one mad momma and a barb wire fence

When I first visited Australia in 1958 from my home New Zealand where we had a dairy farm with Jerseys and a few Ayreshires, there were some herds of Guernseys in South East Queensland which my centre of interest (a young lady, of course, and still with each other nearly 60 years later}.I think you would be hard pushed to find any Guernseys here now. Like New Zealand the 'Black and White' has taken over. No room for sentiment in today's dollar driven world. Pity. We are the poorer for it.

Have you looked at the US Guernsey website? They have a member list by state
http://usguernsey.com/

Very few Guernsey left around here in Ontario though I do know of a couple herds that have some, breeders, that show cows. Much better chance of winning at a cow show if only two herds enter the competition. No real gain in having Guernsey cows, they don?t give the same kind of volume as a Holstein, nor do they have the same butter fat as a Jersey. Tough to make money milking cows regardless what bred you have.

There is a farm still milking them near North Branch Mn. about 20 miles from me. It is the Skiba farm and they are in-laws to my older brother. They must milk 70 or so cows.

Way back when we hand milked cows growing up we had Guernseys,Jerseys,Holsteins and Ayshires always like the Guernseys the best easy to handle and usually easy to milk.

Where are you located? There are still a handful of breeders here in New York. We have several steers ourselves that we raise for meat and working steers/oxen. To get them I have to drive several hours but it is worth it in our mind. We like them bc of the temperament and also quite frankly, we’re sick of looking at black and white cows everywhere we go!

We’ll milk some guernseys one day, once my regular job allows me time to do that. I guess maybe when I retire...

I looked for some around here about 30 years ago and couldn't find any way back then.

The golden cow is very rare now. I had some when my father and I milked years ago. He was a holstein man to the core but somehow all guernseys got stabled on the side of the barn he milked. He loved working with them. I used to have a photo of my youngest about 3 years old sitting on an upturned bucket getting the house milk. Old Maye never so much as flicked her tail at a fly when he there summer or winter. Her stallmate Roxie was younger but almost as gentle with him. We used to halter holstein first calvers and tie the rope across the stable but with guernseys I only had to stand beside them their first few milkings. The downside to guernsey cows as I see it is that they suffer from too small a gene pool. We had swinging stanchions in the barn and some cattle couldn't get up in them.I had to take out the stanchions and put a pipe across the opening with a chain and collar.The calves were sometimes 2 days old before they could stand. Mostly the big turnoff was that they were very slow to conceive. A check of the DHIA summaries of the top herds in the county revealed that a pair of master breeder guernsey herds near me were running 18 and 19 month average calving interval for their whole herd.

A couple of years before the milk cows went I crossed my best guernseys with a leading holstein bull known for easy calving.The guernseys caught on the second breeding and I got a pair of exceptional looking heifers. They looked like high quality black and whites but lighter boned. If you went into the pasture you could walk right up to them like guernseys.

Back in the day I milked for dairymen that had gone on holiday or got sick or hurt. I saw a lot of fancy cows that didn't milk and ugly grade cows that earned their keep. I even met a few crossbred cows on farms that bred everything beef and bought their replacements. Ussually what a dealer could get them cheap.If I had been able to keep milking my plan was to rotate holstein guernsey and ayrshire bulls every generation. The guernsey association used to run an ad in Hoards Dairyman extolling the virtues of using guernsey bulls on heifers. Just a thought....

Born and raised on a small dairy farm in Cass Co. Missouri I remember very few Guernsey cows. I recall pop having one with our Holstein herd for a while. He generally had at least one Jersey, which were more common here. The idea was to get the butterfat count up. It's a shame that a few super rich dudes like Lucas, that take advantage of taxes meant to encourage farming, don't save a few of our "endangered" breeds instead of opting for "bull ranches." gm

Some herds around here have had good luck with Holstein Guernsey crosses.. got the milk of a
Holstein but resulted in a cow that did not need to see the vet near as much.
Ben

Not many left. I checked the Guernsey directory referred to below, only 4 registered breeders in Washington, none within a hundred miles. We had a couple when I was growing up, not much vigor, and dad said Guernsey calves were always looking for an excuse to die. Ours were real gentle. Still remember seeing a 3 year old kid leading a full grown bull at the fair- made me shudder.

We had one as our milk cow growing up in WV. Her name was Pet. Neighbor had a couple Ayshires. Haven't seen either breed in years.