Oxford

Watch on the Conservation Priority List, 2026 edition

At a glance

Origin: Oxfordshire, England
Primary use: Meat and wool
Adult weight: Rams around 300 lb; ewes around 200 lb
Coat: White fleece of 8 to 12 lb of medium wool, staple 3 to 5 in; brown or gray wool on face and lower legs
Horns: Polled
Temperament: Docile, quiet
Experience: Novice to intermediate
Registered: 1882 in the US
Registry: American Oxford Sheep Association (opens in a new tab)

About Oxford sheep

The Oxford is named for Oxfordshire and was made there in the 1830s by crossing Hampshire sheep from the county to the east with Cotswolds from the west. It took muscling and wool quality from the Cotswold, and carcass quality and grazing ability from the Hampshire. The type settled in the 1850s and the name was in use by the 1860s.

It is the largest of the English down breeds, a group that also holds the Hampshire, the Shropshire and the Southdown. Down means the chalk hills of southern England, and the pastures on them are rich.

History

North American imports began in the late 1840s. The Oxford Down Record Association was founded in Xenia, Ohio in 1882, and the breed did best in eastern Canada, around the Great Lakes and through the Corn Belt.

The British breed society followed in 1889 with its first flock book.

Characteristics

The Conservancy puts mature rams around 300 pounds and ewes around 200; Wikipedia's ranges run a little lower on the ram side, 242 to 319 pounds. Faces and lower legs carry brown or gray wool, and lambs are born unevenly colored and whiten as they grow.

The fleece is 8 to 12 pounds of medium-grade white wool with a three to five inch staple, the heaviest of any down breed. They are polled, and can be shorn twice a year.

Temperament and handling

Docile and quiet, by the Conservancy's description, and rated for novice to intermediate keepers.

Size is the main handling fact; an Oxford ram is one of the biggest sheep you will hold a gate against.

What they are used for

A terminal sire, above all: Oxford rams were put over commercial ewes to lift growth rates in the lamb crop, and that cross is still the breed's commercial job.

Meat and wool both pay. The heavy fleece is genuinely marketable, and the ewes have milk behind their lambs; historically that milk also went into cheese.

What they need

The Oxford was selected to turn abundant feed into meat and wool, and it does not do well on sparse feed and light management.

Most heritage breeds are sold on thriftiness. This one is not. It is rugged and takes hard weather, but it needs feeding.

Conservation

The Livestock Conservancy lists the Oxford on Watch. It is rare in the United States, having been supplanted by the Suffolk in the terminal sire job it once owned.

It survives in the flocks of breeders who still cross for growth, and in show strings.

Before you buy

The American Oxford Sheep Association registers the breed. If you are buying a ram for crossbreeding, ask for growth data on his lambs rather than his own show record.

And run the feed budget first; the breed's honest requirement is abundance.

Recent sale prices on HoofnHorn, where there are any, are further down this page.

Sources

Reviewed by HoofnHorn.

No Oxford sheep at auction right now.

Heritage breeds come up in ones and twos, so this is normal. We will email you the moment a Oxford is listed.

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