One of the problems the guernsey breeders got into was trying to breed for increased milk at the expense of the frame and sturdiness of the old style guernseys. They were more of a coarse, raw-boned breed way back. Then there was this big thing to breed them to be "dairy"; and that is what really did so much damage by not keeping the frame and trying to make them something they were not. They got too frail and narrow-chested...you're right. But the "old style" ones that my family had before I was born, and that many of the old-timers had were not the "pretty" show cows that seemed to be the trend. The couple that I had way back in the early 80's were good sized cows and had butterfat in the 5% range, but they were not milk wagons. And they were all using the same basic bulls so you are right also; they had narrowed the gene pool to where so many were too closely related. There is very little "out-cross" bloodlines even today. My favourite dairy breed is guernsey, and hate the fancy ones today.
I know that there was some red holstein used in the guernseys, but it didn't get recorded....
Part of it was that they were needing to get more production to compete with the holstein dairies. And the whole thing of "FAT IS BAD" so they lost the advantage of the "Golden Guernsey" trademark that highlighted the butterfat. Nowadays, it is the A2/A2 protein and the increased beta-carotene in the milk that they should be promoting....but the dairy industry doesn't want that to be a cornerstone, just like we cannot market milk as 96.5% FAT FREE instead of saying it is "whole milk" @ 3.5% fat; or saying it is 99% fat free instead of saying it is 1% fat....Everything else can be marketed as "FAT FREE" and all that...[/quote
My mother says, that when she stayed at her aunts sometimes as a child, they got their milk from a neighbor that milked a Geurnsey cow. She frequently talks about how rich and good the milk was.
