The Grafton flock of pedigree Southdowns was started back in September 2020 quite by accident!

Having had the luxury of way too much grass that the existing commercial ewes couldn’t keep on top of, I decided to look for some store lambs to fatten. By chance, a local farmer happened to be reducing his flock number and in amongst them were some pedigree Southdown lambs. I bought them, fell in love with their teddy bear faces and there began the Grafton Southdown flock.

Shortly after, I decided I wanted to increase my numbers. Another trip to the local farmer resulted in seven shearling ewes, only by this time I had already been to a few agricultural shows and had seen the Southdowns being shown and thought ‘I can do this!’

The first show we did was in the August of 2021, Staffordshire County Show. We met some lovely fellow Southdown breeders who were very supportive and gave lots of tips and advice. Unfortunately for us, we were told our sheep were ‘too small’ and although they were correct in other ways, they just didn’t have the height that some of the others in the class had. We managed a 6th place with our shearling ewe in a large class and our triumph was my six-year-old old daughter managing a 3rd with the same ewe in her first ever Young Handler class (which was huge!).

It was here that things took a turn! The ‘local farmer’ and I finally got our act together and started dating…. This was the start of where Graham Finlay and his Roughborough flock combined with the Grafton flock... Was this the point where I gained 80 ewes, or did he just get back the ones he sold to me? Win-win either way!

We decided then to have a go with the same ewes at Moreton Show in September 2021. Again, disappointingly, we were again told our sheep were too small and that if we wanted to succeed then we would have to feed up our show stock.

Having listened to the feedback that year, we decided that this wasn’t the direction in which we wanted to take the Grafton flock forward. We want to stick with the breed as it was traditionally bred. We also take great pride in the fact that our flock is grass-fed so for us, feeding concentrates isn’t conducive to our farming practices.

We did our first lambing together this year in February 2022 of both our pedigrees and our commercials, which proved to be a successful partnership (we managed not to kill each other!) and had excellent lambing percentages. I joined Graham to live at the farm this summer, so we were incredibly busy joining two houses together and sadly we missed out on all but one show this year.

On the very last day for entry, after too much wine, I took it upon myself to enter an aged ewe, shearling ram and shearling ewe into our local Moreton Show. Again, being so busy with full time jobs as well as our own farm we struggled to find the time to pull out a show team. Cut a long story short, we chose our three from the flock the week before the show. We chucked some halters on, gave them a half bath and a little trim and went for it!

We are super proud of what happened on that day. After thinking we probably wouldn’t stand a chance and were expecting to do our classes then have an enjoyable day looking around the show, little did we know how fantastic our little traditional bunch were going to do that morning. Our aged ewe came 2nd, our shearling ram also 2nd and our super little shearling ewe cleaned up with a 1st in her class, change to breed champion and then went on to reserve interbreed champion. Southdown Judge Sarah Mitchell gave us such positive feedback on our sheep which was incredibly encouraging and only served to strengthen our commitment to maintain our traditional, grass-fed and high welfare flock without feeling that we have to make huge changes in order to win with them.

We very much appreciate that on the day, every judge and every show will always be different and have a differing opinion, but we also recognise what a super flock we do have and by staying true to our own values we can still produce winning stock.

Our ewes are all currently out with our new boy from the Gunton flock and we are really looking forward to seeing what they all produce for us when we lamb again in February 2023.

We also can’t wait to get our stock out to more of the shows next year and catch up again with all our Southdown friends. See you at the sheep pens.

Karen Green, The Grafton-Roughborough Flock