Members may have seen on the Society website recently an advert publicising the sale/ dispersal of the Camber Castle (109) flock of Southdowns run by David Randall and Sarah Mitchell.
This marks the end of the couple’s active Southdown breeding and although David and Sarah (the Society’s current president) will keep an eagle eye on the breed and its comings and goings, it was felt opportune to try and capture the thoughts, recollections and history of both the flock and David and Sarah.
David’s Early Days
Born in Dorset, not far from where he now lives, David was brought up as the son of a shepherd and a dairy farmer’s daughter. Naturally he followed his father around various pedigree flocks of sheep: Dorset Downs, Shropshires and later Romneys and then Dorset Horns, living in Shropshire, Kent, Suffolk as well as Dorset. Formal training comprised an NCA at Plumpton and at 17 - the youngest at that time to do it - he attended a specialist sheep course at Ponteland College, Northumberland.
David also picked up much valued learning from other shepherds – so much of sheep keeping learnt is by word of mouth – and although he got a bit from his father, he learned much more from others such as Kenny Riggall (Suffolks), Sid Raiment and Ted Frampton (both Hampshires).
David’s first memories of sheep were of two Shropshire rams being collared and chained a yard apart to stop them fighting. His first encounters with Southdowns were in 1965 when his father bought five Southdown wethers to fatten for Smithfield and again in 1966. David and his father finally succumbed to the lure of the Southdown when they bought five in-lamb ewes from Charlie Goodger’s Flock No. 33, at Manor Farm, Chidham, Chichester. They cost £10 apiece. The flock had been their source for the wethers and supplied tups to a number of local farms, so they knew they were pretty good animals. To accompany these, the Randalls bought for 38 guineas (a fortnight’s wages) the last “Ford” ram bred by Lady Jean Philips out of a Ford ewe by a Ford ram. (The Ford flock owned by Walter Langmead, was in its time one of the top Southdown flocks).
Sarah’s Early Days
Sarah’s pathway into Southdowns is slightly more unusual. Her father came from a successful Nottinghamshire - based heavy engineering company. Following her Hampshire-born mother’s ultimatum, her father, in his fifties and not a farmer by instinct, migrated south in the early 1970s buying 152 acres and derelict house on the Isle of Wight. The farm had been bankrupt three times before the Mitchells bought it, was severely rundown and by all accounts not an easy farm. The Island’s indigenous breed were ”Horns” (Dorset Horns) but the Mitchells acquired 32 in-lamb Southdowns around Christmas 1974 from local MP Stephen Ross who was giving up Southdowns. They were, according to Sarah, ‘as fat as pigs’. Having left boarding school early, Sarah vividly remembers walking them up and down the farm lane (a mile each way) to get them fit. This was to become the Godshill (151) flock. Sarah recalls that only three lambed without assistance in spite of all the exercise she gave them. Even now the in-lamb ewes are still walked out in the morning after they have had a little bit of home mix-corn (local oats and field beans mixed to a 20% protein).
Having gained her O’ levels with relatively little schooling Sarah did an NCA and further sheep qualifications at Sparsholt. And, after a little bit of recreational travelling often involving agriculture and the inevitable misogyny, Sarah settled into a life in and around farming and got involved with Dexter cattle as David Randall David having sheared for England, and shepherded all over England and South Scotland is regrettably, retiring from Southdown sheep. This is due to ill health: sixty years of Type One Diabetes, requiring control of blood sugar every night and day that has eventually resulted in his total loss of sight. David, is also waiting for a new hip, which, due to diabetic ulcer on his foot cannot happen until it is healed. It could be long wait. 14 well as Southdowns. In Sarah’s view Dexters are very similar: ‘Chuffing stubborn, but convert rubbish very nicely, and both can survive in hard quarters’.
That Special Ram
Asked about a favorite ram, David recalls Bloxworth D86 (M31320) bought in 1968 from Roland Harris. It was at the time when some of the first New Zealand rams were being imported and had been used extensively in the Bloxworth flock. David visited Roland to buy a shearing machine and saw two ewes with single ram lambs both by a traditional English tup from the Ringmer flock at three days old and took a fancy to him. However, when he went to collect the ram in August, Melvin the shepherd had failed to tag any of the 100 tup lambs. Fortunately David easily spotted both ram lambs. D86 was especially important as he was the sire of the first of David’s championship winners at the Royal – Jasper as named by his subsequent owner - was a ram lamb and the start of David’s winning streak. D86 also helped David to be the first to win the championship at the Royal with a pair of ewe lambs. The same pair went on to repeat the success at Royal Welsh a week later. David recalls they were fantastic as lambs, but sadly they were no good as ewes!
Getting together, winning and merging
Camber Castle and Godshill Sarah and David got together in 1987 and started working their flocks together in the same year, although prior to that the Godshill and Camber Castle flocks had been using the same stud rams. However, it was not until 1998 that David and Sarah decided to formally merge the Camber Castle and Godshill flock – primarily to make the paperwork easier for the then breed secretary. As the flocks had effectively merged many years earlier, there were no difficult decisions to be made.
The Camber Castle flock was never very big, typically 10 ewes kept as a “pack flock” - the shepherd’s own flock kept with the employer’s main flock. However, when David had his own land he was able to get up to around 100 briefly around the time of the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak. Over the last few years the flock has numbered about 20 ewes on 30 acres, split into paddocks and grazed rotationally - seven days in and 28 days rest, as this minimises the worm burden.
They have been at Wells Farm, four miles from Bridport, Dorset, since December 1996. Starting out with no fences and redundant poultry sheds they were able to set up things as they wanted using their experience from previous farms and systems, although Sarah admits now a few things need repairing – especially as the race is also used to wrestle her English Goats!
David’s championship winning days with Southdowns were in the 1970s and 1980s and latterly he has won championships with Bluefaced Leicesters and Suffolks.
Expert eye, a preference for the traditional type, folding and the Golden Hoof
In terms of breeding strategy David has avoided French breeding lines, but has introduced a bit of New Zealand in a Spratton ram and he has found these give a few more lambs, and a lot more milk and lambings are a bit easier and closer together. David believes Southdowns have always had a lack of milk, with thick, sticky colostrum and can do a single very well, but sometimes struggle with a twin.
When choosing stock David primarily uses his experienced judgement. “It’s got to be right. Genetics and breeding come second, but if it was good sheep and a French ram I would walk away from it.” In David’s opinion the French type of Southdown are a different sheep: “The coats are wrong, the body shape is wrong, the colour is wrong and the size is totally wrong. You might as well buy a Texel!”
David believes changes in the sheep industry have affected the Southdown and indeed all down breeds in the last 40 years. Attributing this to the decline/loss of the professional shepherds. “These sheep were meant to work on arable farms with a sequence of crops that fitted with folding.
Ram lambs at the front, ewes lambs at the side and the ewes behind working through an acre(1) . With varied crops such as vetches, clover and sainfoin. David recalls that Dorsets were folded most of the year; lambed in December then folded on dairy grass until lambs were six weeks old, this was followed with swedes and kale until end of March, then Hungry Gap kale. “When the lambs were weaned they would go to red clover and in the first week in June they would move on to vetches until the end of July, then they would be back on to kale.
“Ewes came in briefly for lambing and were put out when lambs were three days old, although the ewes would come in at night. This was ‘The Golden Hoof’ converting grass and any vegetable matter into meat to eat and adding fertility to grow cereals.”
The place for Southdowns and wishes for the future
David believes Southdowns are a small niche market with high quality butcher’s lambs that produce carcasses at 32-35lbs (14-16kg). “That gives the size of joints people can afford.”
Historically, Sarah adds, different markets want different size lambs. In the South and South West smaller lambs would fetch better prices than the bigger lambs, whereas in the East and North where they needed to feed industry and larger families larger lambs were more in demand.
Thinking about the future David is not sure what the future means for the breed or sheepkeepers in general. Everything has changed from what David grew up with. He admits it would be nice to see some larger (in hundreds) commercial flocks of Southdowns, but to do that farmers need land and quite bit of money. And for breeders to focus on the traditional type of Southdown. February(2) born lambs would be ready for the Royal (1st week of July) ram lambs would weigh 100-110lbs and ewe lambs between 80-90lbs.
“It’s very hard to pass on advice to the next generation the way farming is these days, especially as government policy and the public demands are so conflicting and confusing,” he adds.
(1)A great irony today is that with the current promotion of “Regenerative Agriculture” arable farmers are now looking to re-introduce livestock into their rotation. Not an easy job with fences gone, water gone, shepherds gone and no infrastructure of markets or vets.
(2)Valentine’s Day was the traditional day to lamb Southdowns, as this meant the ram lambs and shearlings would be well grown and ready to sell at Findon Sheep Fair – the second Saturday in September