Meat · Breed · Short entry
Suffolk
A black-faced, hornless meat sheep from East Anglia, bred from Norfolk Horn ewes and Southdown rams around Bury St Edmunds in the late eighteenth century. Arthur Young named it the Suffolk breed in 1797. It is the leading terminal sire in the UK and Ireland, prized for fast-growing lambs.
Southdown Norfolks
The Suffolk Sheep Society says the breed evolved from Norfolk Horn ewes mated with Southdown rams around Bury St Edmunds. The sheep were first called Southdown Norfolks or, locally, "black faces". Arthur Young recorded them in 1797 in his General View of the Agriculture of the County of Suffolk, writing that they "ought to be called the Suffolk breed". The oldest flock in the first flock book, Frost of West Wratting, dates from 1810, and the first Suffolk classes were held at the Suffolk Show in 1859.
The society was formed in 1886, and its first flock book in 1887 listed 46 flocks, all in East Anglia. The first flocks were set up in Ireland in 1891, Scotland in 1895 and Wales in 1901. In France a flock book was opened in 1967; Races de France notes that its lambs have the highest growth rates of the meat breeds and that rams are used on hardy breeds.
How it connects
Breed
- similar Texel
