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-three Permanent Champion does, (see Hall of Fame) while never showing at more than 4 or 5 shows per season.  Thirteen of our twenty-three 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.      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 both 2006 and 2007, now three 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 12/08 was 3111 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".  Please contact us  if you would like a copy of the article!

We attended three shows in 2009, and won GCH in all three, finishing both Merry (age 2) and Binibeca (age 5).  Black Velvet won BOB and went on to win Best Senior Doe in Show at a huge Southern Vermont spring show! She and  Sheba again comprised the winning Produce of Dam at Southern VT. Also in 2009, our two dry yearlings from Sibelius, Mercy and Jubilee, won Junior Championships, both earning their dry legs.

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 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 so impressed by Wimsey's (Petey's) outstanding structural correctness, and his first kid crop, that we plan to use him heavily again this season.

In 2009 we also added a junior herd sire, Hull's WRAR B-Rock Robama, from Kim Hull's herd in TX, out of SGCH Vance's Robena, and GCH Willow Run Chevalier Ruffian. Again the intent was to bring in related genetics (Robena descends from our GCH Rose Petal line), while also adding some new genetic lines. Coming from "milky" lines, we anticipate that B-Rock should also help to increase milk production.

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 replace any animal who does not meet standards. 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.