Cartoon Freerangers

Each autumn we bring in most of the freeranging females to either run them with a bull if they didn’t calve in the previous spring or to begin getting their calves used to being handled. Most of the girls turn themselves in voluntarily as they seem to know the score but every year there seems to be a hardcore group of girls that do not want to come back to the hill enclosure so we have to spend a while locating them and subsequently rounding them up.

One morning in late September Chris and I were sent to check in on them on our way in to Glenmore. Luckily there were a few greedy girls in the group that couldn’t turn down a tasty bit of handfeed! Here’s what went down….

Manouk

Boot Camp

As the rut has now come to a close and we move into winter, us reindeer herders are feeling particularly strong. For most of the year the female reindeer in our herd spend their days free-ranging the Cairngorms. However during the autumn we have all the reindeer that we want to breed from in our 1,200 acre hill enclosure. This is to ensure that we know which bulls have bred with which females and to ensure there is no inbreeding. This does however mean we have many more reindeer to feed than usual. As this is their natural habitat, when the reindeer free-roam they find all their own food and we don’t feed them at all. Whilst there is plenty of natural grazing in the hill enclosure we also give them supplementary food to make sure that the grazing replenishes each year. At the peak of the rut we were both mixing and carrying a lot of food up to the reindeer. In fact on the days when the most reindeer have been in the enclosure we are carrying 144 kg a day or a tonne a week.

Houdini and his girls

Mixing feed can be a real work out as it involves lugging around 20kg bags of various grains, measuring out the right amounts and throwing them into a cement mixer. The reindeer food is made from a mix of barley, sugar beet, sheep mix, dark grains (a by-product of whisky distilling) and hay soaked in garlic. As you can’t buy reindeer food here in Scotland, we mix up the food from lots of different things to give the reindeer the right nutrition.

Izzy mixing feed

And then once the feed is mixed, actually getting it to the reindeer is no mean feat. Normally the food is packed into roughly 15kg sacs and carried up to the reindeer enclosure on our shoulders. We have however also been asking visitors to help carry smaller bags (no more than 6kg) of reindeer food up the hill. If you have helped us carry food, thanks again from everyone here at the centre, both two and four legged.

You certainly won’t find a reindeer herder in the gym, especially not during the rut. Mixing and carrying feed (as well as unloading the feed lorry) is a very good work out and justifies the copious amounts of cake we all eat. I also know that all the reindeer herders, especially the women, take great joy in easily flinging a large bag of reindeer food onto our backs as a visit of people look on amazed. This summer I heard a man ask my colleague Nell if she needed a big strong man to help her carry her bag, to which she responded very politely “I’m a little strong woman and I’ll be just fine”. Go Nell!

Lotti

The Course of a Life

Chris has been on at me to write another blog, but with Christmas round the corner (at time of writing) I’m a bit pushed for time, so have been racking my brain for a blog that is mostly photos… Which to be honest, I think a lot of the time is all people really want to see, rather than read a load of text.

With the loss of old lad Paintpot this autumn, I thought I’d show you all the course of a reindeer’s life, from baby calf to OAP. At 11 years old he didn’t make it as long as some reindeer manage, but 11 is still a perfectly respectable age for a reindeer, especially a male.

Paintpot was born in 2009, in the year that we named reindeer after animals with horns or antlers. Yes, I see your confusion. As a calf Paintpot was white but with one black foreleg, as if he’d stepped in a pot of paint – a nickname that stuck. I couldn’t find a photo of him as a really little calf so have resorted to freeze-framing our DVD, hence the poor resolution.

At two months old, Paintpot’s calf coat is already beginning to fade, his face marking not so visible. Here he is with his mum Shine, out free-ranging on the mountains for his first summer, and just starting to grow his very first set of antlers.

The calves moult their baby coats in the summer and when their new winter coat grows in again in the autumn they look more like mini adults. The cute baby look is sadly gone. At 7 months old, his adult winter coat is showing his markings more clearly.

From now on the photos are all taken in September of each year, as I do the photos for the adoption certificates in this month, when reindeer look at their best, full grown antlers and fresh winter coats. At a year and a half old, below, Paintpot definitely has the look of a naughty child about him, full of mischief and wanting to poke anyone and everyone with those sharp point antlers…anything to be a general pest…

At two Paintpot has grown a huge amount, his antlers are much larger and his ego and testosterone level has gone up too! Two year old bulls are generally a total pain, confident enough to be awkward should they choose to challenge us, and ruled by their hormones. Teenagers…

Reindeer reach fully grown as three year olds, height-wise at least. Like humans, after that it’s generally outward growth rather than upward! At three Paintpot is pretty impressive with enormous antlers, although not particularly elaborate ones (you’ll see throughout the whole series of photos that his antlers are always relatively simple – that was just his antler shape). Three years old is when we castrate our male reindeer too, so you’ll see the big change here is that Paintpot’s antlers are no longer ‘clean’, the velvet skin remaining right into the winter rather than stripping away cleanly in early September. Castrating reindeer changes their hormone balance, and antler growth is controlled by hormones, hence the different appearance between bulls and castrates throughout each autumn.

The next two photos below, taken in 2012 and 2013, show Paintpot as a young castrate, his antlers smaller than before (another ‘side-effect’ of castration) but still a decent size, his coat smooth and sleek and the alert face of a youngster.

But then, as Paintpot reaches middle-age at 6, there is a bit of a change noticeable. Still excellent antlers (good grazing that year, obviously!), but his coat isn’t quite as sleek as before and he just has a general look of a reindeer not quite so much in the flush of youth. I know how he feels at this point.

 

And in 2015, below, there is an obvious change yet again. The antlers are much smaller and not so clean cut, with more points lower down looking a bit scruffy. More ‘castrate-y’. Bulls and young reindeer have neat and tidy antlers in general, while older castrates have smaller, ‘busier’ antlers.

This trend continues in 2016 as Paintpot reaches age 8, and he has by now adopted his default expression (‘grumpy toad.…). I always thought his dad Sirkas looked like a toad, and here he is the spitting image. What an expression!

By age 9, Paintpot has aged enormously, and now looks like an old reindeer. Some reindeer seem to reach this stage relatively early, like Paintpot, while some reindeer spend ages in the middle aged stage with no obvious visual sign that they are getting on a bit. It just varies from animal to animal.

The last photo I have of Paintpot, taken in September 2018, shows him aged 10. An old lad and very definitely in the OAP category, but still looking well. In fact he looks exactly the same as the previous year, as if the photo had just been taken from the other side!

So there you go. Paintpot lived for another year after that last photo, but I never did get a final photo of him before he passed away. But there’s the course of a life right in front of you, fast-forwarded, yet ticking all the boxes that advancing age throws at us. Slightly different boxes to a human perhaps, but none the less recognisable.

As it turns out, I just can’t write a short blog. I really do try, but the words keep coming. But I’ve had an enjoyable hour reminiscing about a favourite buddy of mine which was a nice break away from the (probably more important) things I should have been doing, so thank you Paintpot for the memories, and Chris for hassling me into writing a blog once again!

Hen

Four pop stars and an Okapi walked into a carpark…

Four pop stars and an Okapi walked into a carpark…

…and no this is not the start of a bad joke but instead a phone call that we get every once in a while from Jamie, the carpark attendant on Cairngorm mountain. At the moment most of the females are in our hill enclosure either because they have calves that we are training and getting used to people, or because they have been running with a bull with the hope they will calve next spring. We do have a few reindeer though who are fully retired and we won’t breed from anymore. These reindeer are allowed to free-roam to their hearts content but seem to keep showing up in various places keeping us busy. I will introduce you to the members of the group, four of whom were born in 2006 and named after pop and rock legends and the final one who was born in 2008 when the theme was horned and antlered animals.

The Golden Oldies

Lulu

Named after the Scottish singer-songwriter, Lulu is a firm favourite amongst herders; we can definitely all shout about how much we love her. She is very tame and friendly and is the mother of LX who has inherited her greediness. For any of you who have been on the hill to meet the reindeer you may have fed LX as he is often one of the first in line for hand feeding.

Blondie

Named due to being totally white, Blondie certainly doesn’t have a heart of glass. Blondie is a leucistic reindeer, a genetic condition that causes a loss of pigmentation and also causes her to be deaf. Blondie is often the last of the reindeer in the group to come for food as she may not have heard us calling. Blondie is also very useful as unless she is in snow, she doesn’t camouflage as well as the other reindeer so she helps us spot the group.

Enya

Enya is one of the most independent reindeer in the herd; I’m sure much like her namesake the Irish singer. Recently we have barely had a day without rain but the reindeer don’t seem to mind, being very well adapted for the environment that they live in. Enya always grows a lovely set of antlers.

Santana

The final of the 4 rock and pop legends in this group is Santana named after the American rock band. Her coat is certainly as smooth as it looks in this photo of her taken last autumn. Santana is the oldest daughter of Haze, who was a strong matriarch in the herd in her day. Santana certainly is no stranger to being amongst strong women with Gazelle, Caddis and Camembert as sisters. So it’s no surprise that she has formed a clear group with these lovely older girls.

Okapi

Now last but certainly not least is Okapi, who is two years younger than the others but also retired from motherhood. If you’re not sure what the animal Okapi is named after looks like then definitely google it as they are incredibly cool looking. They live in the forest and are related to giraffes. Okapi is incredibly tame and greedy, and will follow you almost anywhere if you have a bag of feed.

These five reindeer have a collective age of 63 (old enough to get a bus pass) and have been on all sorts of adventures throughout the autumn. We originally brought them into the enclosure as a part of a larger group, the rest of which we wanted in the enclosure for the rut. We then let these guys out of the enclosure to free-range the hills which they did for a couple of weeks, before trying their hand at a bit of reindeer herding. They successfully brought two cows and calves back with them to the enclosure. Cheers girls, thanks for doing our job for us. After the reward of an easy meal we let the girls back out of the enclosure, half hoping they would continue to play the game and collect some more reindeer for us…

Lotti

Funny Photos

Working with the reindeer means spending a lot of time with them. This means we often get amazing photo opportunities, with great weather conditions or reindeer posing. This also means that we can often see their slightly less glamorous side, and tend to capture it every now and then…

Manouk

Lulu
Diamond’s tongue
LX (Lulu’s son)
Izzy discovered what a bog is during her first week of volunteering!
The boys always seem keen to get in the Christmas spirit early by decorating their antlers.

A reindeer in the house!
Sooty letting a youngster have a nap at the end of a hill trip
Kate’s picture of Fly
Limbering up for another busy day of Hill Trips!

 

Autumn in the Cairngorm Mountains

Mammals

Reindeer

 

During the autumn months reindeer are starting to prepare for winter. By October, their summer coat has begun to disappear below a fresh new winter coat. Reindeer winter coat is one of the warmest coats in the animal kingdom, with over 2000 hairs per square inch on their body. About 600 hairs per square inch are hollow allowing air to be trapped between them forming an insulating layer, which can keep help them survive down to 72°C.

 

 

Cairn Gorm views

The rutting season is an important time of year for Reindeer bulls. First their velvet strips off their antlers leaving them with solid bone, stained red from the blood supply that was there to help the antlers to grow. Eventually the antlers lose the red stain and their impressive sets are revealed!

 

Kota during this year’s rutting season

Castrated males don’t lose the velvet from their antlers quite so quickly. This is because the reduction of testosterone doesn’t trigger the response to shed it. This also means that the castrated males get to keep their antlers slightly longer than the bulls. Because of this, castrated males make for the best Christmas reindeer.

 

Females that are put with the bulls during the rutting season spend the majority of the time with the breeding bull. Calves and yearlings will stay with their mothers during this period too.

Female with her calf and a friend

 

Red squirrels

 

The red squirrels are also preparing for winter during the autumn too. They collect stores of nuts and burry them so once winter begins they have a source of food, even when no suitable food is available. The only issue they have is remembering where they buried their store.

 

Also during the autumn Red Squirrels begin to grow their winter coat. Their winter coat, like reindeer, is thicker than their summer coat, and denser. This allows them to keep warm during the winter. Their ear tufts also become thicker and more prominent.

 

Pine Martins

 

A group of pine martins is called “richness”, even though they are skilful climbers they normally hunt on the ground. Pine martens are believed to have come to Britain around 10,500 BC, at the end of the last ice age. They live in woodland habitats and were Britain’s second most common carnivore around 6,500 years ago in Britain and Ireland.

 

Similar to red squirrels, pine martins do not hibernate. They have thick fur all over there body to keep them warm during the cold winters. Pine Martins are hardy mammals and will eat anything including mushrooms, insects, small mammals such as voles and bird eggs. Being omnivorous allows them to always have a source of food even when certain plants and berries have died off due to the winter frost. They mainly forage or hunt for food at night or late in the evening.

 

The local bar to the Reindeer Centre is named after this elusive creature, the reason being that several Pine Martins have been spotted outside the bar late in the evening eating the various feed which is left out for the Red Squirrels. (Reindeer herders are also often found at the Pine Marten Bar late in the evening…)

 

Birds

 

Osprey

 

During the autumn Ospreys will start their incredible journey back to Africa, where they travel up to 5000 miles. The female is the first to leave. She leaves the nest and her fledglings in the care of the male who will continue to fish for them until they are able to fend for themselves, once they can the male will set of on the migration. Then finally the young will start their journey.

 

The mating pair may not see each other over the winter period, but will meet up again the following breeding season back in Scotland or Northern England. Ospreys were driven to extinction in the UK in the 1900’s due to egg collectors, they were also considered a pest due to them eating the salmon and trout.

 

Ospreys returned for the first time to breed in 1954 to Loch Garten near Aviemore. This was a natural recolonization, but the birds still needed a huge amount of help and protection to breed successfully in the Scottish highlands.

Eventually several pairs of osprey began to breed successfully in more remote parts of Scotland. However, many birds were helped with artificial nest platforms and nest protection watches, and a huge public enthusiasm for the birds helped ensure their survival.

 

Golden eagle

 

The golden eagle is the top predator in Scotland. It’s a massive bird of prey that mainly hunts rabbits and mountain hares but will also catch foxes, young deer and large birds like grouse. It can be seen soaring high in the sky in upland areas and remote glens. Golden eagles have large home territories, nesting on rocky cliff faces and in trees where it builds a giant nest or ‘eyrie’. These nests are often used by successive generations to rear their own young. Furthermore, similar to Osprey, Golden eagles pair for life

 

There are around 400 breeding pairs of Golden Eagles within Scotland and Northern England too. The birds are perfectly adapted to survive the harsh Scottish environment. Their talons can grow up to three inches, along with an amazingly sharp beak makes them perfect hunters. Also their varied diet means that there will always be some sort of prey to hunt.

 

Ptarmigans

 

They are exclusively found in the Scottish Highlands. Mature birds eat a diet of seeds, berries, nuts and leaves, while juveniles will also eat invertebrates. During the breeding season, males usually mate with one hen, producing one brood a year of around seven eggs.

 

You can often find them all year round on top of the highest mountains in the UK, especially on the Cairngorm Plato. Ptarmigans prefer the rocky tops of mountains to the forest environment.

 

During the autumn months they start to grow in their winter feathers. Eventually they change from brown to a pristine white colour. This helps protect them from predation. Blending into the snowy winter background makes it more difficult for Golden Eagles to hunt the small bird.

Izzy

Our awesome 2019 volunteers!

We have a huge network (well, by our standards) of staff members who work at least part of the year for us, ranging from those full-time year round, through seasonal staff right down to the odd ex-herder roped in for literally just a day or two a year. Our job is made far easier however, by the epic efforts of a constant stream of volunteers, and 2019 has been no exception. So this is just a wee blog to say thank you to everyone!

 

We have, over the years, built up quite a collection of regular, long-standing volunteers, some of whom visit annually, and some just every now and then. The top dog of this crew has to be retired joiner Paul, who first came to help for a couple of weeks back in May 1999. Twenty years on and he’s still coming for a fortnight twice a year to ‘mend, bend, and fix’ and while he may be 80 now, age hasn’t slowed him down too much yet!

Paul with Olympic

Emm is another very regular volunteer, having settled into a regular pattern in the last couple of years of 4 separate weeks of volunteering throughout the year. She’s a great help to us with everything reindeer related, and the kitchen table is never short of cake while she’s around… You can read more about one of her stints in her blog here. We also have Sharon and Colin who come once or twice a year too – always bringing a good supply of crafting materials for the Paddocks, and – socks! Their blog is here:

Emm with her adopted reindeer Mo, braving the weather at a very cold and wet local Christmas event.

Our other type of regular volunteer is the lovely Anna who’s been helping us out once a week throughout the summer and autumn, and we hope will continue to do so in the future. Stella fits into this category too but is a bit elusive of late – she’s always off volunteering for all sorts of different organisations or visiting far-flung parts of the world. Having far too much fun! Stella – if you’re reading this, will we ever see you again?!

 

Long-standing volunteers have the luxury of picking and choosing what season they want to come in, but otherwise we are helped out by a steady stream of helpers from the last week of May until the end of October. This year has been great, and I think I’ve remarked to everyone here at some point just how lucky we’ve been with the 2019 vols! Once upon a time we used to get mainly vet students wanting to volunteer in order to gain experience, but nowadays we seem to get a much wider range of people from all walks of life, which suits us nicely as it’s lovely to meet so many interesting people! This year they included a chocolatier, an Olympic physiotherapist, a costume designer and a goat milker, with all sorts in between! So HUGE thanks for all their willing and tireless help to Arianne, Cathy, Becks, Katy, Rowena, Katie F, Sally, Laura F, Amy, Ida, Mary, Hannah, Christine, Kathleen, Helen K, Laura W, Helen A, Heather, Katie D, Kimberley, Mhairi, Lou and Joanne. But no thanks whatsoever to the volunteer who booked in for a week and then never turned up, having not thought to mention to us that her plans had changed…

Volunteer Amy finding time for a selfie with Olympic. Or possibly just being a head-rest for him!

 

Special thanks and recognition go to Cathy, who downed tools with 3 days’ notice to drive to the opposite end of the country to help us out after another volunteer cancelled on us; and to Rowena, Sally, Mary and Katie D who all came in 2018 and had such a good time they gave up another spell of their precious time to come back this year. And another special mention (and possibly a round of applause!) has to go to Helen A, who managed to break her wrist on the third day of her week with us but still soldiered on for the next 4 days! And finally Nell, who managed to time her volunteering stint just at the point that we decided we needed an extra staff member for the summer, so she ended up with two months’ paid work afterwards.

Laura with Fly. Looking the part!

Thank you all SO much – we’ve loved having you all here and hope you all had a great time! And I expect we’ll see quite a few of you again in the future 😊

Hen

Family Ties

A frequent questions from visitors is whether reindeer retain a bond with their mother. Whilst we often see female calves stay strongly bonded with their mum throughout their life, we see it less often with the males. Male calves tend to be seeking their independence from about 8 months old, and we start seeing them grazing away from their mother more and more. We tend to split them at a year old, and it’s rare that either cow or male calf seem to notice the absence of the other. When they come back into contact with each other at a later date, there rarely seems to be any recognition of their relationship.

Emmental
Olmec

When we recently brought Emmental and her new calf into the hill enclosure from the summer free-range however, she met up with her three-year-old son Olmec. He clearly recognised her as his mum, going over to her, having a sniff and grunting, like he would have back when he was a calf. I’m not sure that Emmental really returned the affection – once a cow has a new calf, they become the centre of their world and their main priority.

Olmec and Emmental

A few days later, Olmec was in the same part of the enclosure as Emmental and her calf Oslo, and he was definitely fascinated by this new addition to the family – following him around and having a good sniff! Perhaps he realised how similar they all looked!

Brothers

Olmec and Oslo

Little Oslo is one of the most confident calves this year, and was the first calf to be brave enough to come and eat out of the feed bag.

Oslo feeding

Hopefully he will follow in the hooves of big brother Olmec and grow into a confident friendly and handsome lad. He’s already learned to walk on a headcollar and is very sweet.

Andi

Reindeer Retrieval Mission

As part of the only UK herd of reindeer that live in their natural habitat, our herd are lucky enough to spend a good portion of each year roaming completely free on the mountains. We have an area of leased land which we have grazing permission for, but the boundary of this land isn’t fenced, so occasionally a few of our females do wander a little further than they’re allowed to. We then have to make a plan to bring them back – usually this entails walking out, finding the group (no easy task at times!), catching what we can and leading them back on headcollars. Missions like this are why we feel we can call ourselves “Reindeer herders”.

This autumn, we received reports of a small group of females who were enjoying the perfect grazing and peaceful setting in a glen several miles east of our normal grazing land. After a few recces to see who was there, myself and Dave headed out on a breezy Saturday morning, equipped with binoculars, reindeer feed, human food and plenty of headcollars. Lotti was able to give us a ride part way in the landrover, shaving about 3 miles off our walk, which was much appreciated! From there, it was a case of hiking, uphill, for an hour or so before we caught sight of the reindeer, having a lovely time grazing with a beautiful view. They were nearly at the top of one of the local munros (not many jobs where you do tick off a few munros from time to time!).

Dixie and Camembert

 

We had a quick scan of the group to see who was there and if we’d be able to catch them. Dixie and Camembert: great, both easy to catch and lead. Malawi and Joni: hmm, catchable if we’re lucky. Puzzle: will hopefully follow mum Dixie. Rain and her calf: one of the wilder, more independent reindeer in the herd, not a chance, let’s hope she follows us! We offered out the food and good ol’ Dixie and Camembert cheerfully let us put headcollars on.

Camembert on halter

Dave set off in the lead, and I started out as “herding dog” – walking quietly at the back providing gentle pressure to encourage the rest of the group to follow. This is how we usually move the herd, but there is a bit of a knack to knowing how far ahead to walk with the lead reindeer, and how much pressure to put on if you’re at the back – push too hard and wilder reindeer will try to double back, and they’re faster than us!

Plateau

For the first 10 minutes all was well, Dave leading the way with the small group following happily enough. But as soon as Dave started heading downhill, Malawi and Joni decided that they weren’t so keen to leave their quiet idyll. They started breaking away, dodging among the peat hags, and as older, dominant reindeer, the rest of the herd were keener to follow their lead than Dave’s. And my fielding skills were not quite going to cut it, they could outrun me, however much I waved my arms! So we needed a different plan. The ringleaders were definitely the old lasses Joni and Malawi, both of which were also old enough to be suspicious about whether they wanted to be captured or not! But without them on head collars, we weren’t going to manage our mission.

Malawi doing her best to lead the group astray amongst the peat hags

Malawi was first up – I held out our wee bag of bribery, and thankfully all of the preferential feeding of the older reindeer we did last winter helped as Malawi’s greed overcame her suspicion, and she started guzzling. The tricky thing with her is that she’s one of the few reindeer in the herd who doesn’t grow antlers, so she has no ‘handles’ to aid with catching her, so I slipped my arm round her neck hoping she wouldn’t try to break away. Greed won out and she agreed to stand whilst I popped a headcollar on.

Leaving me holding three reindeer, Dave then managed to entice Joni into the feed bag, and we had our ringleaders on head collars! Knowing Dixie would follow along, we then let her off again, and poor Dave set off downhill leading three reindeer, of which Joni was definitely the most stubborn! I had to do about five minutes of epic fielding to convince the rest of the reindeer to follow Dave, then they gave in and settled in to pottering along in single file.

Over the mountain, the enclosure in sight in the far distance.
Flats

Down we went, to the valley floor, crossed the river, and up the other side. The hours passed as we meandered our way along (nothing happens quickly with reindeer). We both regretted not taking more snacks, and I hugely regretted not taking a bottle of water… the reindeer had no such problems as they were snacking on blaeberry, lichen and heather as we walked along, and drinking at pools.

Plodding across the Ciste, heading for the ridge above the road.

As we approached the Ciste car park, after about 4 miles of walking with our wee herd of miscreants, Dave was seriously flagging. Joni was not the best behaved on a head collar and would much rather have stayed trespassing on our neighbour’s land, so was putting the brakes on most of the way. She may be 13 but is still plenty strong enough! It was also 2pm and way past our lunchtime, so I called for reinforcements and Tilly and Lotti came up to meet us and take over from Dave. Relieved of responsibility, Dave lay down on the car park for a few minutes of recovery before heading down for some food!

Relief team

I carried on following at the back of the group on the last leg home, and our now-well-behaved reindeer followed obediently over one more hill, down and across the ski road, over Utsi Bridge and into the enclosure. They got a well-earned feed before joining our group in the enclosure – for Camembert and Puzzle they went to join handsome breeding bulls Kota and Houdini respectively, in the hope that they’ll have a calf next year. The others joined our non-breeding group, where they’re enjoying plenty of hand feed from our visitors, and Rain’s wee calf Vienna is getting used to be around people. All will head back out to free-range soon, hopefully with fewer thoughts of wandering on land where they’re not meant to be!

Vienna and Rain

Andi

Jonas

Jonas joined our herd from Sweden in 2011 when we brought over a contingent of bulls to boost the genetics in our own herd. We had to make a decision the next year to which reindeer we would keep as bulls and breed from and which ones we would geld/castrate and have as Christmas reindeer. Jonas never made it to being a bull, which maybe in hindsight is a shame cos he has got a lovely nature. However we cant live off hindsight and to be completely honest he has just made the most wonderful Christmas reindeer… Possibly the perfect Christmas reindeer in his own right.

Jonas in Sweden 2011

Although the first couple of years he was still very much learning the ropes alongside our already trained reindeer he took to wearing a harness, taking part in events across the country and settling back into herd life here on the mountain like a duck to water. When we are away from home at Christmas time it is really important the reindeer travel together and do events as a mini herd. Therefore our teams consist of no less than 4 reindeer. They take comfort in numbers so to take 2 reindeer away on their own means they would have little guidance and therefore uncomfortable in their surroundings. The handlers who work with them all year round know these reindeer very well and also become part of the ‘herd’ on Christmas tour.

Jonas one year into Scottish life

After about 2-3 years of taking part in Christmas events Jonas became the role model to younger, less experienced reindeer going out for their first year. Jonas isn’t one to be petted or molly coddled and to be honest most reindeer aren’t. They enjoy company however they don’t want to be fussed. There are exceptions within this of course, however I would say only a handful of reindeer in our herd actually want to be fussed, petted or stroked. Putting on harness and working them is completely different, they treat it as a job and do it with the upmost patience and expertise as long as they get their bowl of food and have the company from the other reindeer they really are fantastic at it. I would sooner take any of our reindeer into a busy event in a city than my dog, their behaviour remains consistent as does their appetite!

Becoming a reliable Christmas Reindeer by 2017

So at the age of 9 I wouldn’t hesitate to take Jonas out on tour as one of my most experienced Christmas reindeer. He is pale in colour which makes him very striking within the team. He grows nice, shapely compact antlers suiting travelling in our livestock trucks and pulling the sleigh alongside another Christmas reindeer and he just has the best nature but isn’t a pest by being super tame, in your face and pushy which can come with the nature of a very tame reindeer. All in all I think he’s one of my favourite and definitely understated Christmas reindeer in the herd so here’s hoping I get to work with him again this year!

Fiona

Jonas 2019
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