2019, Waiting on lambs!

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Addie

Periwinkle

Guinevere

Icarus

Piccolo

Juliana

Lucia

Marley

Eloise

Lolla

 

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Chocolate

Marshmallow

Shelly

Sugar

 

[AmberLops]

Beautiful pictures!
Another question for you...how much do they usually weigh?
Someone on craigslist near me is selling a ram, and they say he weighs 'a solid 300lbs'. Is that their normal weight?

 

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This is Kris, 23", getting fat here, 165#. No leg or shoulder definition.

Up to about 200#. NABSSAR allows 26" sheep, so they can get to 200 easily, especially if fat.

Didn't weight these two, but they are 22" and were morbidly, deathly obese. Bought in full fleece, bad idea for many reasons (never again). Were fed excessive amounts of grain all the time, grew 4-5" of wool because of that, too.

Blob on legs...

Ram got sick because of sudden lack of tons of grain. Almost lost him. No food in his gut for several days, but still tons of lard covering him, inside and out.

Obesity is common in Babydolls, they are like ponies and should not get high quality grass, hay nor grain. Limited grain is fine for growing lambs or pregnant ewes.


The American Southdown has no heights listed, but has weights up to 300 pounds for mature rams that I've seen mentioned, 250 for yearling rams in breed standard. Sheep keep maturing and filling out in their 3rd year, so I can see the Am. Southdown getting to 300.

So, I would bet it was an American Southdown instead, confused on breed or the guy was guessing at weight.
Lots of LGD dog people add 20-40# to their dogs, in either actual lard or imaginary number to make them seem larger & intimidating/impressive to others.
Many of the GPs in Va, if fit & not obese, are actually under 100#.

 

[AmberLops]

Ha ha the things people will do...
To be honest...I didn't know there are 2 types of babydoll sheep! So which type do you have? In my 2 minutes of research just now, I see that there are Olde English and American ?

 

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Ha ha the things people will do...
To be honest...I didn't know there are 2 types of babydoll sheep! So which type do you have? In my 2 minutes of research just now, I see that there are Olde English and American ?

There is only one type of Babydoll.

There are different Southdowns.

1) The true original, still in the United Kingdom, was created in the late 1700's. Their website lists zero weights or heights, at all. I hate when they do that!
It seems like they mostly look the same, maybe a little taller, 26"? Contacted them to get weights & heights.

2) Then there is the American Southdown. Like most breeds, they have been super sized.

3) The Babydoll Southdown is supposedly from the original Southdown that was brought over from the UK. Right at the start of the US making them jumbo sized, instead of following the trend to grow em up, Mr Mock kept them original sized. Since he gave them another word to the name, they aren't considered the actual same breed. That would of been so confusing & the American Southdown registry probably wouldn't of allowed them over time. Guess that makes it a double edged sword.

Unfortunately, some Babydoll breeders that show are breeding them up! I don't understand why they don't just switch to the American Southdown then!! Terrible.
And they are doing that annoying long neck, high wither build.

4) Australian Southdown is apparently even larger, at a whopping 363#!
From their site-
"In the year 1974 the import ban on sheep from New Zealand was lifted. ...top southdown rams and ewes were imported...
Up till that time a 15 month old Southdowm ram would weigh 150 to 170 lbs (68 - 77kg). A mature Southdown ram would weigh 210 - 230 lbs (95- 104kg). With the infusion of the NZ blood todays top 15 month old rams weigh between 100-125kg with mature rams between 155-165kgs."

So then, there's probably a 5th version, New Zealand Southdown. So, looking that up, they also grew huge(to the 363# size), but used to be under 190#.


Some old pics of them.

There's more, but idk where they went.

This is an American Southdown in 1960.
She currently raises Babydolls & I think American Southdown, too.

 

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This is the current American Southdown, ewe & ram...

 

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Oh, and more on colors.
The OEBSR allows spotted sheep, so does the new, 3rd registry.
Blacks & spotted have happened in the Southdown before, but everything except white is culled out.

AND
there is a similar project in Australia for the old, small, Babydoll Southdown. They started much further back in history, for whites. And now, they are working on black, too. But the blacks are mutts that are slowly working to purebred.

 

[AmberLops]

I can't stand when people start mixing 2 types of a breed...my family used to import/export military and police German Shepherds from Germany/Russia/Ukraine/France etc...so I have a really hard time with people mixing the European-line shepherds with American lines...they look like collies

You are quite the expert on sheep! I'm glad I found you on here because, even though I raised some sheep...I really don't know much about them ha ha. I just had meat sheep!
The American Southdowns just looks so...plain and like a sheep ha ha! No offense to them but I love the little, boxy, sweet -looking Southdown Babydolls

So in the American type...there is no 'Babydoll'?

 

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In the US, there is the American Southdown and the Babydoll Southdown, now two separate breeds.