PIHEPE

Pitt Island Wild Sheep

Naturally Nurtured

“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

PITT ISLAND WILD SHEEP (Pihepe)

Origins

Pitt Island Wild Sheep, named Pihepe, originate from Saxony Merinos. They were sent to Pitt Island in the Chatham Islands off the East coast of New Zealand in 1841 by Baron von Alsdorf. In 1843, Frederick Hunt was the first person to farm them on Pitt Island.

Pihepe & Roger Beattie

Roger Beattie, enviropreneur and founder of Wyld, lived on the Chatham Islands for 17 years and became enamored by this wild and free breed. When he returned to New Zealand, he bought 8 ewes and 2 rams with him and continued to purchase more Pitt Island Wild Sheep when he could.

Roger and his wife Nicki Beattie ran 2500 Pihepe on Banks Peninsula. Unfortunately, Nicki passed away in 2021. Roger continues to breed and develop these wild sheep through Natural Selection.

“Man selects only for his own good: Nature only for that of the being which she tends.”

— Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

Farming on Banks Peninsula, New Zealand

Our Pihepe 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.

This free, wild life is attributed to their easy care, hardiness, agility, and resilience.

Ethics

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