BOHEPE

Wild Merinos

Leave them alone

“Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep and doesn’t know where to find them. Leave them alone and they will come home, wagging their tails behind them.”

— Little Bo Peep nursery rhyme

BOHEPE

Origins

In 1997 Dr. David Scobie (AgResearch) started a sheep breeding program that would reduce husbandry costs and improve animal welfare.

AgResearch combined 9 different breeds of wild sheep, East Freisians, Finnish Landrace, Wiltshires, and Merinos to create a short tail, bare breech, low-cost, easy-care sheep.

Roger Beattie & Bohepe

By 2004 the project was achieving success but ironically the funding was cut. These sheep were about to be sold to the meatworks.

Roger Beattie saw the value in these AgResearch sheep. They had in excess of $500,000 invested in them and were bred by one of New Zealand’s top sheep scientists. All this time, money, effort, and expertise were about to be tossed out.

Roger, seeing the potential, bought this mid-micron, low-cost easy-care sheep and started farming them organically alongside his Pitt Island wild sheep.

Farming on Banks Peninsula, New Zealand

Our Bohepe runs free across the hill country at Lucas Bay and Ataahua on Banks Peninsula. They are resilient, agile, and graceful, with a natural ability to survive.

Their farm is a blend of regenerative and organic farming principles, which means that they prioritize the restoration and rejuvenation of the land and soil, prioritizing the well-being of their sheep over any other consideration.

“Nature has been around far longer than modern chemical farming practices and has a way of ensuring its own survival. It would be truly remarkable if we thought we had more wisdom than nature.”

— Roger Beattie

Ethics

Bohepe are pasture raised and grazed, receive no chemical treatment, inoculation, or antibiotics in their lifetime and their tails are left as nature intended, wagging behind them. The sheep are farmed in an ethical, chemical-free environment, on a pasture that is rich in biodiversity.

They are shorn once a year in the summer thus allowing them to keep warm through the winter months.