In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries "Alderney" was a general term for cattle from the archipelago; many were exported to mainland Britain under this name, regardless of which of the islands they came from.

[2]: 143 From the seventeenth century[1]: 103  or from no later than 1724,[2]: 140  cattle from the Channel Islands began to be exported in considerable numbers to mainland Britain.

[4]: S7 The Alderney was small; its conformation was typical of a dairy breed, with a light bone structure and a somewhat deer-like appearance.

The colour of the coat was variable, ranging through shades of dun, fawn, light red and yellow, either with or without patches of white.

A description from 1909 says of it "The Alderney ranks as the best butter cow in the world, whilst its abundant yield of milk, rich in cream, is phenomenal";[5]: 81  by 1939 the same sentence had been altered to read "The Jersey ...".