Welcome to the Roeburn Alpines Web Site! We hope that you will find this site easy to use, and that your exploration of the pages will give you an accurate feel for our animals, the care they receive, and our philosophy of breeding and selection. 

 We have been breeding purebred French Alpine dairy goats since 1976, when I purchased my original purebred Alpine, Greenfields Mary Lou.  With minimal knowledge at that point as to how to judge quality, I was very fortunate in my selection. Mary Lou was a grand daughter of  Ryan’s Regal Xenta, a very well known sire on the West Coast at that time, and she proved to be an outstanding foundation doe. More  than thirty years later, I find it quite amazing that every doe in our current herd descends from Mary Lou!!  Mary Lou was outcrossed with the famous Sunshine Robelta’s Rommel, owned by Art Keefe. We then purchased *B Little Rise SS Asher Benjamin, a son of Sunshine Stella’s Strike, out of another GCH Rommel daughter, and our breeding program was launched.

We became licensed as a milk handler/dairy in Vermont in 1986, and shipped all of our milk to the Vermont Butter and Cheese Company in Barre, VT. until moving to Lebanon, NH in 1997 to be closer to our professional jobs. When the Cheese Company decided shortly after our move that they no longer needed our milk, I welcomed the opportunity to shift gears, as breeding a better animal is truly what has kept me in this business all these years! Our focus since then has been that of maintaining a small, top quality, herd of high performance animals. We expect all of our does to meet stringent standards in the areas of both conformation and production. Our expectation is that your Roeburn animal, if cared for responsibly, will be competitive in the show ring and will excel in a dairy setting!

I became a Life Member of ADGA in 2001, having maintained continuous membership since 1976. Over these years, we have bred twenty-four Permanent Champion does, (see Hall of Fame) while never showing at more than 4 or 5 shows per season.  Thirteen of our twenty-four Permanent Champions, including the beautiful GCH Roeburn's SVL Layla, are descended from Mary Lou. We have continuously placed an emphasis on record keeping, have been on DHIA/DHIR since 1980, and with the exception of two years, have been appraised annually since the program began. Repeatedly, customers and others familiar with our herd comment on the consistency they see in our animals. Four of our 8 mature does are appraised at 92, and our linear appraisal herd average score (does) stands at 90!!  

We were thrilled to have two of our ten mature does achieve placement on the 2005 ADGA Top Ten list for Alpine production. Eliana did it again in 2006, 2007, and 2008, for a total of four consecutive years! Ranking #3 for production  in 2005 at 3-01 305 4490 (the top ranking Purebred Alpine!!), and  #9 for Protein, at 109 lbs, SG Eliana moved up to #2 in 2006 with 4390 lbs.of milk in 305 days (4-01 305 4390 131 3.0%).  She topped both of those records with production at age 5-01 at 4510 lbs. in 305 days (5-01 3-5 4510 2.9%). SG Joie de Vivre placed #6 for production at 3-11 305 4090, and #9 for butter fat at 131 lbs in 2005. Our DHIA rolling herd average as of 1/11 is 3043 lbs.!

We were extremely pleased to have our herd featured in the May 2006 Alpine issue of the United Caprine News, in the article entitled "The Roeburn herd is small but mighty".  Our herd was again highlighted in the 2010 Alpine issue.  Please contact us  if you would like a copy of either of these articles!

We attended three shows in 2010, and were very pleased to finish GCH Roeburn's Bruno Bon Bini.  Three of our 4 dry yearlings from Petey, Callie, Maritsa, and Sapphy, earned their dry legs.  We were very saddened to lose our beautiful SGCH Rose of Sharon at age 10 one month after she kidded with triplets for the first time in her life, but her legacy will live on in the herd through her four daughters, GCH Sheba FS92, GCH Velvet FS92, her young daughters, Caliente, and Sweet Afton, and her son, Bruno FS91. We made the difficult decision this summer to sell GCH Binibeca FS 91, primarily to make room in the permanent herd for her outstanding daughters, including GCH Bon Bini, and our top 2010 doelings, Ciutadella and Binibasi.

Our current herd continues to be heavily influenced by our former senior herd sire, +*B Roeburn's Gatwick Brutus, deceased in 2003. Brutus was a fantastic buck for milk production, siring our two Top Ten does, SG Eliana and SG Joie de Vivre. We have always favored linebreeding, generally staying within a limited gene pool, and only bringing in new bloodlines with great care. With the addition of two new junior herd sires in 2007 and 2008, Kickapoo-Valley Saga Sibelius, and Kickapoo-Valley HL Lord Wimsey, we have attempted to expand the opportunity for continued line breeding.  Both bucks are closely related to our recent herd sires, Limerick and Lohengrin, and Saga's genetics go back to some of the Sunshine animals used in our early years.We are very excited to have had the opportunity to purchase these young sires from Kickapoo Valley, and are looking forward to seeing their offspring develop! We have been extremely impressed by Lord Wimsey's (Petey's) outstanding structural correctness, and the consistency we see in his daughters; in the three show we attended in 2010, three of Petey's 4 dry yearling daughters earned their dry legs, and two of his 2010 daughters placed Reserve Junior Champion!

HEALTH: Maintaining strict standards for regular health maintenance and cleanliness will continue to be a priority for us. While  our herd has been 100% CAE negative for several years, we continue to test for CAE annually. All animals are vaccinated for tetanus and enterotoxemia, and wormed regularly.  While our animals have pasture available, with our very short season, they are fed grain and second cut hay year round. We follow a strict protocol to assure health maintenance and disease prevention, and are very fortunate to work closely with an outstanding large animal veterinarian. 

TERMS OF SALE: Prices quoted are for pre-ordered kids picked up at the farm by four weeks of age. Prices on kids are subject to change once kids are born. Most kids will be for sale; a few mature does will also be available in the spring, as we maintain a herd size of no more than ten mature milkers. Please refer to our Stock for Sale listing. We ship by air out of Manchester, NH, Burlington, VT, or Hartford, CT. A $100 deposit is required to hold any animal reserved. This deposit can be transferred to another kid or refunded if we cannot fill your order. As buyer satisfaction is very important to us, we will not sell an animal who does not meet our standards of excellence. We regret that we are not able to refund the sale price of an animal. Buyers are responsible for the cost of shipment and health certificate. We reserve the right to decide not to offer an animal for sale if we choose to retain it for our own herd. We also ask that we have the option of obtaining up to 20 straws of semen from a purchased buck for the price of the collection.

We thank all those of you who have purchased stock from us over the years for your support and confidence, and encourage others with interest in our herd to contact us with any questions you may have.