This site is about a small, round, exceptionally good-natured sheep: the Babydoll Southdown, often called the miniature Southdown, and known to almost everyone who meets one as a teddy bear sheep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The name is a little misleading. These are not a scaled-down version of anything. They are Southdowns as Southdowns used to be, before the twentieth century bred the modern commercial sheep up to a bigger frame and a longer leg. The old smaller type was never lost entirely, and the sheep that carried it forward are the ones now called Babydolls, or Olde English Babydoll Southdowns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Southdown belongs to the chalk downland of Sussex, in the south of England. It was brought into a consistent, recognisable breed by John Ellman of Glynde in the decades either side of 1800, and it went on to influence a great many of the other down breeds. What made it valuable was its ability to do well on thin grassland, and the quality of its fleece: fine, dense and springy, and still sought after by hand spinners today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Partly for the obvious reason. A field of Babydolls is a cheerful sight, and their temperament matches their expression: calm, curious and easy to be around. Beyond the charm, their size suits small acreage, and their inability to reach much above knee height has given them a genuine working niche grazing between vines and under fruit trees, where a larger sheep would make short work of the crop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They are still sheep, of course, with everything that goes with it: shearing once a year, feet to keep an eye on, fencing they will test, and a strong preference for company. But as a way into keeping a few sheep, there are far harder places to start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This site is about a small, round, exceptionally good-natured sheep: the Babydoll Southdown, often called the miniature Southdown, and known to almost everyone who meets one as a teddy bear sheep. Not miniaturised, just unchanged The name is a little misleading. These are not a scaled-down version of anything. They are Southdowns as Southdowns used…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"taxonomy_info":[],"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"teddyadmin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.teddybearsheep.co.uk\/?author=1"},"comment_info":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teddybearsheep.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teddybearsheep.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teddybearsheep.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teddybearsheep.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teddybearsheep.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.teddybearsheep.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37,"href":"https:\/\/www.teddybearsheep.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/37"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teddybearsheep.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}