Southdown sheep Southdown sheep The Southdown is a small, dual-purpose English sheep, raised primarily for meat. The Southdown breed was originally bred by John Ellman of Glynde, near Lewes, East Sussex, about 200 years ago. His work was continued by Jonas Webb of Babraham in Cambridgeshire, who developed the larger animal of today. It was exported to New Zealand and was used in the breeding of the Canterbury lamb. This sheep was involved with crossbreeding to develop other breeds: The Southdown in Britain is recognised by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust as a native breed, although today it is popular amongst the
Breed registry conformation shows. For the breed to move to the Miscellaneous class and then to fully recognized status, the breed's stud book must be closed. A closed stud book allows the breed to stay very pure to its type, but limits its ability to be improved. This may put a breed at a disadvantage, especially in performance disciplines, where an animal is worth more if it is successful in competition even if it is not pure. It also limits the gene pool, which may make certain undesirable characteristics become accentuated in the breed, such as a poor conformational fault or a