Boonerah is a family run farm located at Hexham, 15 kilometres from Mortlake in South West Victoria.

We currently run 14,000 ewes together with a Spring calving herd.

The sheep team at Hexham comprises of Nick, Helen, Lachie, Dougal, Ash, Fleur and Harry and beef team at Brucknell includes Skye, Tom, Digby, Max and Jock.

The purpose of the Boonerah pedigree flocks is to improve the genetics of our commercial flock, which in turn increases the production and profitability of our client’s enterprises.

We want to see your commercial flock improve as much as ours has.

In 2023 we purchased the Wairere Australia Romney flock. The Wairere Romney will be run alongside our two performance recorded flocks. We currently have Boonerah Maternals and Boonerah Supremes. The Maternals are based on Coopworth genetics and breeding philosophy, whilst the Supremes are a terminal sire founded by Poll Dorset and New Zealand Texel genetics.

Wairere has been at the forefront of developing the modern New Zealand Romney. This has helped them be the largest seller of rams in New Zealand since the late 1980s. Wairere has been marketing rams in Australia since 2005. In 2015 they made the commitment to set up an Australian satellite flock. This involved importing ewes and extensive ET programs over multiple years to build the flock up to its current state of 1500 mixed aged ewes.

Why have we bought Wairere?

They are a valuable genetic and unique resource for the Australian prime lamb industry. Wairere is a very commercially focused flock that is run at high stocking rates in challenging environments. Ewe lambs must get in lamb to be retained in the flock. They will produce consistent and even lines of sheep.

Boonerah first used Romneys in our maternal program in 2015. Our biggest success with the Romney has been their easy care. We have stopped supplementary feeding our pedigree sheep above 12 months of age, all but eliminated lambing difficulties and reduced the number of cast sheep.