Olde English (Babydoll) Southdown Sheep
Looking for some adorable lawn-mowing pets? Interested in starting your own flock of babydoll sheep? Then you might want to join our mailing list for babydoll lambs. UPDATE 10/3/24: We are all sold out of last year's lambs and don't currently have any retirement ewes available, but we do have a 1.5 year-old triple-registered black proven ram available for sale for anyone looking to breed this fall. Please contact us if you're interested.
How do I get a lamb from your farm in 2025?
The simple answer is to join our lamb auction mailing list! Our next group of lambs will be born in April through May of 2025 and they will be available for their new home once they are weaned, around 80 days after birth. We will create an online auction page for every lamb once they are born and email everyone on the mailing list to notify them that the auctions are about to start. Anyone from the US and Canada will be able to place a bid for as many lambs as they want. Once the auction is over, winning bidders will be required to put down a deposit for their lambs within 48 hours of winning the auction. At a later date, we will arrange with any winning bidders for a date that they can come pick their lambs from our farm once they are at least 80 days old (with the remainder of the cost paid upon pickup).
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Please note that we are located in Buckingham, PA and cannot transport lambs to you. You must come to the farm to pick up your lambs when they are ready for weaning (usually early to mid-July). We also will not allow lambs to be picked up as "bottle babies" before the 80 day weaning process is complete (except in the case of an orphaned/rejected lamb).
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Any questions about our waitlist and the process? Feel free to email us at hundredfruitfarm@gmail.com.
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2025 Lamb Auction Starting Bids (Unless Otherwise Noted):
Unregistered Ewe lambs: $200 starting bid
Wether lambs: $150 starting bid
Registered ewe lambs: $400 staring bid (BSSBA & BSRA)
Registered ram lambs: $200 starting bid (BSSBA & BSRA)
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Retirement Ewes
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If you're interested in adding some older adult sheep to your flock, you can skip the waitlist! Every year we have "retirement ewes" available for adoption. These are ewes we are no longer breeding for various reasons. Some are older, some are poor mothers, some have had health problems, some just have other issues that don't make them great for breeding - but they can still make great farm pets! Babydoll sheep live anywhere from 10-16 years, and the ewes we have available for retirement are usually around 4-8 years old. The adoption fees for these sheep range from $0 to $300, and we will be fully transparent about any health issues they've had and why we are adopting them out. If you are interested in an older sheep, please email us or fill out the form below.
About the Breed
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Olde English Southdown Sheep go by a number of different names, including "Babydolls", "Babydoll Southdowns", "Miniature Southdowns", etc. They are defined by their small stature, friendly and easy-going disposition, and teddy-bear-like smiling faces. Although many people think that these sheep have been bred from a larger breed to a miniature form to make novelty pets, the opposite is true. These miniature sheep are actually the original Southdown breed from the South Downs region of England. They were imported into the US in the early 19th century and were enormously popular on small family farms in the UK and America throughout the 19th century and into the early 20th century. As family farms began to decline in the early 20th cenury, and electricity made large freezers possible, smaller breeds began to fall out of favor and the "bigger is better" philosophy resulted in people breeding progressively larger sheep until the American line of Southdowns became a large breed of meat sheep distinct from the original English breed, which had almost become extinct in the US. The use of livestock in orchards also declined as agriculture moved towards industrialization and away from integrated farms. So less and less farmers would keep these sheep in their orchards, as so many farmers switched to herbicides instead. The breed was rescued from oblivion in the 1980s, and since then has grown to be an increasingly popular breed among smallholders and hobbyists as well as orchardists and vineyard owners.
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Although relatively few people eat babydoll sheep anymore, the breed was orginially developed as a dual purpose breed for both meat and wool, and the breed can still be used for this purpose today.
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Our Flock
Some of the hardest workers on our farm are our flock of babydoll sheep who tirelessly work to keep down the grass in between our fruit and nut trees, and gobble down any fallen fruit they come across in the process. Fortunately for us, they are very willing workers who are more than glad to do this service for us. In return for their assistance, we make sure to always provide them with fresh grass, water, shelter, and minerals and keep them as happy and healthy as can be, and keep their hooves and wool trimmed as needed. As of April 2024, we currently have 28 sheep in our flock - 25 ewes, one wether, and two rams. Our rams and most of our ewes are registered with Babydoll Southdown Sheep Breeders Association (BSSBA) and Babydoll Sheep Registry Associtation (BSRA). Because we have both unregistered and registered ewes, we have both registered and unregistered lambs for sale.
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Orchard Sheep
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Why are these sheep so great for orchards and vineyards? The answer lies in their short stature and grazing habits. Since Babydoll Southdowns only stand 18-24" at the shoulder, they can only reach a few feet up to eat the leaves from fruit trees and grape vines. This means that they can do a great job of eating the grass, weeds, and root suckers that grow at the base of fruit trees and grape vines, without damaging the fruiting branches themselves. They will also not damage the mature bark of trees or vines when managed properly, unlike most other breeds of sheep. (It's important to note that they do love to eat the bark of young fruit trees and vines though, so young trees will need to be protected with hardware cloth or cages until they are old enough to form harder, mature bark.) In addition to keeping the grass down, they also fertilize the orchard with their droppings, and eat fallen fruit that can fester insect pests and other pathogens that would harm the quality of the fruit (but will not in any way harm the sheep). So while conventional orchards will use herbicides to kill grass around fruit trees, insecticides to kill insect pests, and fungicides to kill fungal pathogens, holistic and organic orchardists can use sheep to take the place of all these chemicals.
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