Catching Coffee

All summer our cows and calves free-range in the Cairngorms. Finding all the best spots to graze and generally keeping themselves to themselves. At the end of the summer, the temperature starts to drop on the tops of the hills, this brings the reindeer lower down and coincides with us bringing the cows and calves back into the enclosure. We bring them in partly so we can train the calves, who are now 3-4 months old and so we can bring the females in for the rut, which is held in the hill enclosure.

Coffee as a newborn calf.

For many of the reindeer, bringing them in consists of spying a group of them on the lower slopes of Cairngorm. Calling them, catching a couple of the adults and walking them into the enclosure with any calves following through the gate. For a few of the reindeer things are a little trickier. Some of them walk off the hills into different glens and have to be fetched in Brenda, our livestock truck. If these groups are adults then it is easy enough to catch them and walk them into the truck to bring them home again. Sometimes though, the group includes calves, who are not yet halter trained. That’s when things get a little trickier.

In this case our group consisted of almost all adults apart from Beanie’s calf, who we have named Coffee. I had seen Beanie and Coffee earlier in the week and he had been very shy (fair enough having not seen many people all summer), he hadn’t wanted to follow Beanie and the other reindeer that I had haltered up and eventually I had let Beanie go so that she could go and find Coffee. I knew that catching him would need a bit of patience.

Beanie and Coffee with Tap and Sundae behind, on the day that Coffee did not want to follow!
Northern white-tailed bumblebee on a Devil’s Bit Scabious flower.

I headed out into the hills, up through the woodland (passing this beautiful bumble bee who I thought deserved a mention) and managed to find the group of reindeer. Ironically Gaelic name of the hill I found them on translates as the ‘hill of the gathering’. I was delighted to see that the entire group were very friendly and greedy, setting a good example to young Coffee. I knew I had a good couple of hours to win him over before Ruth and Isla could come out to meet me and help with the actual catching as they were currently taking the morning hill trip. That left me with a very wonderful job, hang out with a lovely herd of reindeer, eat my lunch and generally try to be calm and approachable.

Glacée and Dante looking majestic.
Darling feasting on lots of lovely lichen. Coffee lurking behind!
Coffee attacking Lotti’s backpack.
Lotti and Coffee who was slowly becoming braver!
Coffee getting closer.
Isla sitting patiently whilst Lotti and Ruth catch Coffee.

For the first hour or so, Beanie and the other greedy girls were at my side at all times. Coffee stayed within view but a good distance away. Over the next couple of hours he got closer and closer until he was within a couple of feet of me, he even started kicking my rucksack at one point. Rude!

Fairly soon after this a hill walker came past and chatted to me, Coffee ran off at first but then fairly quickly re-appeared clearly realising that he wasn’t a threat – all great desensitisation. Next, Ruth and Isla both arrived. Again Coffee was a little unsure at first, but very quickly came back over to investigate. Ruth managed to hide her body behind Beanie and get a hold of the Coffee’s back leg, after which I was able to put a halter on him. Inevitably, Coffee was pretty unimpressed at first and spent the first few minutes pulling on the rope. He walked him off the hill along with Beanie and 4 other young females. By the time we had reached the woodland, he was munching away on mushrooms and seemed to mostly have forgotten about the halter around his face.

Isla with two single cows and Lotti behind with Beanie and Coffee.
Coffee munching on a mushroom.

We drove the reindeer back to Glenmore and walked him up to our hill enclosure which is where he is just now still. It can be a bit of a baptism of fire catching a calf out on the hill like that but doesn’t affect their training. Coffee has spent the last couple of months in our hill enclosure getting tamer and tamer and more recently, has been halter trained properly. If you’d like to read back on how we halter train our calves, then read this blog, written way back in 2015.

Returned to the hill enclosure!

Lotti

Reindeer around food

For anyone that has visited the reindeer on a Hill Trip, you’ll know that we do a small talk about the reindeer before we feed them. If I’m not the person chatting, I like to stand back and enjoy the mischief that the reindeer come up with when they’re getting impatient waiting for their food. There are a few techniques that the reindeer use to try and get their food early and I thought it would make an amusing blog for you wonderful readers.

The final talk on a Hill Trip where a herder introduces people to the reindeer and we aim to tell you about some of their fascinating adaptations for life in the sub Arctic. We can get very distracted by misbehaving reindeer!
The green feed bag is like a magnet for our reindeer! Here’s Mivvi following Sheena down the hill.

Considering that reindeer have epic senses of smell, it isn’t surprising that they can sniff out where the food is (and to be honest we don’t hide it either) their food is carried up to the reindeer in big green sacks, so they’re super obvious. If one of us (herders) is taking a Hill Trip by ourselves, we are conducting a talk whilst trying to deter reindeer snuffling about our feed bags, kicking our bags or even trying to bite through the bags! Which I suspect leads to great entertainment for our visitors. So having an extra pair of hands there is always appreciated. Now down to the good stuff…

The first technique is to kick the feed sack, obviously in the hopes that food may fall out. But as you can imagine those big feet can cause a bit of damage to our poor feed sacks. Whilst chatting away, you will have a group of keen reindeer pawing away at the bag which is really distracting!

The worst culprits for this are usually the yearlings as through the previous winter they received preferential feeding from the green sacks and I suspect they’re frustrated that they can’t now eat from the bags- quite rightly so, extra food is always awesome!

This photo is from early spring 2024 when the ‘black tags’ (those born in spring 2023) were still getting preferential food. It’s a tough lesson when they realise they’re not the youngest in the herd anymore and not invited into the bag anymore. Some learn pretty quickly. Others are still struggling with the concept after years (yes you, Holy Moley aged 4 and Dr Seuss aged 7).
The 2024 calves feeding out of the bag first this September – the poor black tags have a bit of a shock when they are shooed away!
Isla and Cassie allowing the calves in the bag first to feed whilst the adult reindeer have to wait for the food to go out on the ground. Hemp is up on his hind legs in the background – pushing another reindeer away and making sure he gets to stand as close as possible to the bags!
Sometimes you just can’t wait like Yangtze as a calf mugging Joe!

For the next tactic, one specific reindeer comes to mind, and that is Magnum a very handsome 2-year-old who loves to chew our feed sacks and create holes from which he can steal food from. He is very skilled at it and if you’re not paying attention can quickly break his way through our feed sacks. Due to the way that we herders carry the food up the hill, holey bags lead to reindeer food going down the back of our shirts, which isn’t a great feeling.

Magnum trying to make a hole in our bag mid talk! It seems a bit mean to chase him away in front of our lovely visitors when that’s their first impression of the herd but he’s destroyed so many bags! He is relentless and it can be very distracting when we’re trying to tell people how lovely all our reindeer are.
Magnum trying his hardest!

If kicking the sack hasn’t worked, some reindeer then rush over to the visitors in anticipation for the sweet snack they get while visitors hand feed. This can often happen straight away, happening as soon as we have stopped the group to chat to visitors. Once the reindeer have had a quick smell of folks’ pockets, they will head back to the feed sack again. Yearlings Nile and Elbe are guilty of this and are prone to getting right into peoples faces hoping for food.

This is Beret! She’s now learnt how hand feeding works, but it took her a while to cotton on! She spent a whole winter (gently) jumping on people and rubbing her face on our visitors to see if she then got hand feed. Photo: Yvonne Bannister
Hemp being his usual cheeky self! We don’t allow our visitors to touch the reindeer but the rule doesn’t work both ways. Hemp is probably one of the worst culprits for touching visitors. This is him rubbing his face on somebody’s bag! Thankfully this lovely visitor found the experience funny, but for our more nervous visitors this cheeky behavior can be overwhelming so it’s certainly not encouraged!

One of the final techniques I will mention is the puppy dog eye approach. This usually occurs when the group has dispersed, and visitors are off taking pictures of reindeer. Herders will stand holding the empty feed bag and a few reindeer like Druid, Bordeaux, and Olympic will stand next to us patiently waiting for extra food to come their way. Don’t tell the reindeer, but this is usually the best way to manipulate a herder into giving them extra food! When it comes to some of the tamer reindeer, like Nile, Winnie and Elbe puppy dog eyes progress into snuffling through human pockets, leaning their heads on humans and general personal space invasion until they break us herders and we give in.

The Druid approach: “any food in that white bag of yours?”
A classic Bordeaux face – hard to resist!
Elbe making sure herder Hannah can’t miss him!

Amy

Photo Blog: October 2024

October has flown by in a whirl of breeding bulls, flirting cows, busy Hill Trips with the October school holidays, and carrying huge amounts of feed on the hill to feed the high number of reindeer in the enclosure! With three breeding bulls running, plus our non-breeding group which we take our visitors to, it’s a lot of mouths to feed! We’ve also had reindeer down in the woods here in Glenmore so we can train calves to walk on a halter and we did manage a bit of sleigh training before the holidays.

The reindeeer look fantastic at this time of year with fresh winter coats and full grown antlers. Hopefully you enjoy looking through this month’s photos!

3rd of October: The gorgeous Popsicle! She is part of our non-breeding free ranging group at the moment.
3rd of October: This little lad is so bold! He belongs to Torch and often comes marching over demanding more food.
7th of October: Arta chilling out after a Hill Trip.
7th of October: Morven and her mother Spy behind. Both with very spiky antlers!
7th of October: Torch is a phenomenal mum! Here she is making sure her calf (who also features above) is looking good for our visitors.
8th of October: This little lass is getting so tame! Her mum is Cheer, who is quite a shy reindeer.
10th of October: Little and large! One year old Amazon stood next to five year old Athens.
7th of October: Breeding bull Jimmy with some of his cows behind.
9th of October: A lot of rain and a very full Allt Mor. Too wet to take and pics of reindeer today!
1th of October: Butter being led off the hill after being a main breeding bull by Andi, Fi, and Hen. He was a great bull and fairly well-behaved throughout!
14th of October: Dr Seuss feeling snoozy after a hand feeding session.
15th of October: Poirot and Clouseau having a rest together after a Hill Trip. Both born in 2018 and named after inspectors and detectives.
16th of October: Brie’s and Florence’s calves hanging out together.
19th of October: Suebi and Scully having a gentle battle.
20th of October: A very wet morning! It was so wet and windy that we brought the herd into the first part of the enclosure so our visitors didn’t have to work so far.
20th of October: The sun came out in the afternoon for a few moments – here’s Pip’s calf with her epic antlers!
21st of October: Holy Moley, HM, or Her Majesty, as she sometimes is known to the herders.
24th of October: Feeding Kernel and his girls from afar. Here they are running up to the feed line.

Ruth

Thermal photos of reindeer

In early October, a few of us were up the hill with the reindeer at about 8pm (the time on the camera was set wrong – definitely wasn’t 3am!), when it was already pitch dark. One of our friends, Sam, had a thermal camera with him that he was playing with, so we thought a few of his photos would make an interesting blog subject.

We always talk about how good a reindeer’s coat is during the Hill Trips – up to 10,000 hairs per square inch of the skin, with a percentage of those hairs (the ‘guard hairs’) being hollow to trap in body heat, and the remaining hairs forming an incredibly dense undercoat. This coat is designed to keep reindeer alive in incredibly cold environments; the recorded coldest temperature that reindeer have been found alive in is -72 degrees Celsius. Thankfully in Siberia and not Scotland!

These are female reindeer Turtle and Mangetout in this picture. You can see that they don’t show up as much as you might expect, and this is down to that super efficient thick coat that is trapping their body warmth in. Most heat is lost around their eyes and muzzles, and you can see heat retained within their coats where the hair is slightly parted.

A little bit of heat is being lost around the base of Scully’s antlers too, but her antlers themselves are in hard bone just now, with no velvet skin covering them – as you can see there is no heat at all coming from them.

Another setting on the camera, showing in colour this time. Again the eyes and muzzle are most obvious, this time on Merida, along with her legs where her coat isn’t as thick.

This photo is interesting for a couple of reasons. This is me (Hen), and look at how much heat is being lost at my neck. My body is showing up relatively well too, although perhaps not as much as expected – however in this picture I’m wearing a long-sleeved thermal top, a t-shirt, a jumper, a bodywarmer and a waterproof jacket, as well as a neck buff and gloves (it was a very cold night, in my defense)! Yet still my body is showing up as warmer on average than a reindeer’s – with a couple less layers on I would have been glowing like the sun!

The other (more) interesting thing in this photo is the set of antlers in the middle of it, belonging to Pip’s big female calf, who’s grown amazing antlers for a calf this year. Unlike all the adult reindeer in these pics, the calf’s antlers are still covered with velvet skin – but one is dark and one is light. At this time of year the blood supply to the calves’ antlers is cutting off, so here the right hand antler is still vascular (has a blood supply) whilst the left hand one has already lost it’s supply. Sure enough when Sam pointed this out, I touched her antlers briefly and the right hand one was still warm but the left one stone cold. How cool – we’d have never have known without Sam’s camera!

The castrated male reindeer mostly still have velvet skin on their antlers just now, but unfortunately there were none in this group that we could point the camera at – it would be interesting to see how vascular they are still, if at all. Another time! In the meantime I’ll stand by my statement that antlers are one of the coolest things in the animal kingdom!

Many thanks to Sam Ecroyd for the use of his photos for this blog.

Hen

Beret

Calving season May 2021 was my first month being a reindeer herder.

Later that year at Christmas time, I wanted to adopt a reindeer for my nephew Daley and for my niece Joelle in the Netherlands, but who to choose from all those hundred and fifty nice reindeer in the Cairngorms?

Mum Brie was my calving bet that year and she gave birth to a female calf, who we called Beret. Beret was a lovely light-colored reindeer calf, very sweet. As Joelle likes brie (as in the cheese) I thought it would be nice to adopt Brie’s daughter Beret for Joelle, both having a French name as well. Last week was all about Cowboy, my chosen reindeer for my nephew Daley; see that blog by clicking here.

The chosen reindeer! Beret on the left and Cowboy on the right.

Beret spent a lot of time roaming freely on the Cairngorm mountains. She likes to stay around her family, often grazing close to her mum Brie and her younger sisters Sorbet (born 2022) and Danube (born unexpectedly in 2023 on the free range).

The times she was in our hill enclosure, Beret wasn’t quite sure how to behave as a reindeer. Last year she was jumping on top of people to ask for handfeed!

She ran with one of our bulls in Autumn breeding season 2023 and in May (after a winter of free ranging, enjoying her freedom and eating lots of lichen) she gave birth for the first time! She had a big dark colored beautiful female calf and she also got a new baby sister in May this year. All have been out free ranging on the mountains again for the summer months and in September they came back to the hill enclosure so we could halter train the calves.

This Autumn 2024 Beret is behaving a bit more like an adult meeting visitors from our Hill Trips, she is a mum now after all. Her calf and little sister both look great.

Here’s some lovely photos of Beret growing up:

Brie and her calf Beret out free ranging in the hills – July 2021.
Beret back in the hill enclosure – August 2021. What a cutie!
Beret now growing in her lovely winter coat – September 2021.
Beret with her thick winter coat – December 2021.
Beret having a rest, most likely after eating lots of food – February 2022.
Beret after recently casting an antler – April 2022.
Beret beginning to grow her new set of antlers – May 2022.
Beret moulting her old winter coat but still looking very cute – June 2022.
Beret – January 2023 enjoying the snow!
Beret beginning to grow a new set of antlers – April 2023.
Beret looking very smart in her summer coat – August 2023.
A recent picture of Beret from last month in the middle of stripping her velvet – September 2024.
Beret’s lovely calf! She’s done such a good job especially as first time mum.
This is Beret and her wee sister. Beret’s mum Brie had another calf this year adding to the family! Beret and the new addition have lovely matching white noses.
Granny Brie with her new calf.

Hopefully, when Daley and Joelle are a bit older, they will be able to come up and meet Cowboy and Beret in Scotland.

What a gorgeous nose!!

Lisette

Cowboy

Calving season May 2021 was my first month being a reindeer herder.

Later that year at Christmas time, I wanted to adopt a reindeer for my nephew Daley and for my niece Joelle in the Netherlands, but who to choose from all those hundred and fifty nice reindeer in the Cairngorms?

I mostly liked the name Cowboy. Named after a cowboy hat (calving theme in 2021) but also keeping the name animal related. Cowboy’s mum was Pony and Cowboy’s sister is named Turtle (after the bean). A cowboy is not only a person who takes care of cattle, but in movies he is described as a bit of a hero or maybe even a bit of a naughty person in a nice kind of way. Reindeer Cowboy, was a gorgeous dark colored calf and he (now 3 and a half years old) is still very handsome. I decided to adopt him for my nephew Daley. Next week’s blog will be about Beret, my chosen reindeer for my niece Joelle.

Beret on the left and Cowboy on the right – the chosen reindeer for adoption!

Here some lovely photos of Cowboy growing up:

Mum Pony (with her mouth full!) and newborn Cowboy!
Cowboy aged 4 months old – September 2021
Cowboy on a frosty morning – December 2021
Cowboy – December 2021
Cowboy – February 2022
Cowboy with one antler – March 2022
Cowboy growing his new set of antlers and losing his winter coat – June 2022
Cowboy still looking very scruffy but with bigger antlers then the previous pic – July 2022
Cowboy in November 2022 in the woods adjacent to the Paddocks. He grew a very funny set of antlers in 2022, a pointy V (peace sign) sticking out in front of his face on his left antler.
Cowboy in September 2023 – what a handsome boy!

Cowboy spent time at the farm in Glenlivet last summer (2023) and grazing on the free-range over the winter months.

This summer he spent a lot of time in our hill enclosure and it’s nice to see him more often on the Hill Trips. He also loves getting hand feed!

Cowboy looking for more hand feed, September 2024

I’ve spotted him fast asleep not long ago, dreaming I’m sure.. rolling his eyes and twisting his legs. I took my chance to quietly sit next to him for a minute, thinking he would walk away as soon as he woke up and realized someone was sitting next to him. However, he opened his eyes, looked at me, changed position and went back to sleep! Dreaming about food?!

Cowboy dreaming!

Lisette

Photo Blog: September 2024

September is a beautiful time of year. The weather has been completely mixed this year – we’ve had the first snow on the plateau and then HOT summery temperatures! The reindeer also look fantastic with fully grown antlers and fresh winter coats growing through.

We’ve been doing lots of free range missions to bring in the cows and their calves which is always fun. The bulls and cows have been stripping the velvet and getting a wee bit more feisty and hormonal in preparation for the upcoming rut.

The calves have also been given a name but as always we don’t post any names online until our adopters have their newsletters. Maybe by next month’s photo blog!

I’m running away on holiday for the last week of September hence the photos stopping a wee bit early this month. I’ve selected a few more on other days to make up for it though! 😉

2nd of September: Cassie heading up to feed the free rangers, Dante looking back at the camera.
3rd of September: Out on a free range mission! Came across 6 cows all looking super! It wasn’t going to be possible to move them by myself so I called for back-up from Reindeer House. Whilst I was waiting for Lisette to get to me, Juniper and I had a little rest!
9th of September: Christie and her calf both looking great! Christie is a fairly phenomenal lass – she’s now had 4 big beautiful boys in a row and has enough extra energy to grow a super set of antlers.
9th of September: Found these three gorgeous free rangers on the road so took them up to a nice spot away so as not to cause a traffic jam! From L to R we have Borlotti, Shannon and Turtle.
11th of September: The first two faces I see on the hill – what a lovely way to start the day! Morse and Dr Seuss.
11th of September: Morven looking good after a couple of years off motherhood. She’s grown her usual lovely set of antlers and will hopefully run with a bull this autumn.
11th of September: Flax and her calf.
12th of September: Isla and Cassie feeding the calves out of the bags. We do this to give the calves an extra bit of food before the greedy adults eat it all, and also to get them nice and tame the quickest way possible!
12th of September: Flax starting to strip the velvet (see her pic from the day before!).
12th of September: Our regular volunteer Emm leading Cowboy and Mivvi back into the hill enclosure.
13th of September: Sika is 16 years old, one of the oldest in the herd. She’s never had an adopter in her life until very recently!! She’s actually very shy but in recent years has cottoned on to the contents of our white feed bags. This is her licking her lips at the very thought of it!
13th of September: Holy Moley decided to grace us with her presence. She was out free roaming but popped into the enclosure with a bunch of other cows looking for a free lunch!
13th of September: It was a busy day for me. After the morning Hill Trip I went out on a reindeer retrieval mission! This is the gorgeous Fern. She’s 17 and the current oldest member of our herd.
16th of September: Torch’s lovely calf chilling out in the sun!
16th of September: Volunteer Emm and some of lovely ‘single ladies’! Mississippi, Scully (who may be Emm’s favourite in the herd but don’t tell the others that), Zambezi, and Nuii.
17th of September: Athens looking very handsome!
17th of September: Calves feeding out of the bag at the start of a Hill Trip.
19th of September: A hot day when you’re in your winter coat! Adzuki cooling himself down by standing in a bog.
22nd of September: Christie leading the herd out of the mist. To her right is Feta’s calf and Beanie.
22nd of September: Feta’s calf is a chunky lad – he’s a lovely friendly lad.

Ruth

Times a changin’

‘Here’s something to give you all a laugh…’ Fiona ambled into the office yesterday afternoon brandishing a piece of paper. It turned out to be a copy of the rota from July 2009, which sure enough caused much hilarity. Only five staff running the whole shebang? Just… just 3 staff working that day… in midsummer? Fiona – you worked 27 out of 31 days?! Why were you and Mary working six day weeks in the first place?

A Hill Trip 15 years or so ago, before tourism really exploded in the area.

It got me thinking about how different the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre is now compared to 15 years back – it’s a totally different beast; in some ways almost unrecognisable. Having started in 2007, I was away for the summer of 2009 (still attempting to have a ‘proper’ career), but the July 2009 rota looks very familiar to rotas of my first few years – fewer staff and fewer days off.

Pretty much the entire staff of the Reindeer Centre one winter… Ceris, Sally, Sofia, myself, Mary and Fiona in the front (cuddling hand-rear Grunter). Now it takes double the amount!

The massive change in everything here at the Centre has come about for multiple reasons, but the main one is the explosion in the tourism not only in the area, but in Scotland as a whole. When I first started we were very much a wee family business, taking a handful of people up the hill to see the reindeer daily. Ok, slight exaggeration perhaps, but looking back that’s what it seemed like, compared to the more professional, bigger and busier business that we are today. Well, vaguely professional anyway. Sort of professional. Actually, not very profes… Well, bigger and busier business anyway.

Gradually becoming a bit more professional… new sign replacing the ancient crappy one! North and Byron look relatively unimpressed.

Much of the increased tourism I think can be put down to social media. We used to spend hundreds, perhaps even thousands of pounds each year on advertising, both having our leaflets distributed over the Highlands and adverts printed in local publications. Now, we basically don’t do anything at all. There’s just no need – use it right and social media provides free advertising for a business. We operate at capacity much of the time now, with not enough hours in the day to run extra tours, so there is no point in attracting people only to turn them away. Scotland as a whole has experienced this huge increase in tourism in latter years, some places for the better and some for the worse, the infrastructure struggling to keep up. Anyone living in any UK ‘beauty spot’ such as the Lakes or Snowdonia will know what I am talking about.

15 years ago we had no limit in numbers on the Hill Trips purely as none was needed – and we never had any issues. But about 10 years ago we had to adjust this, first limiting the Trips to 25 groups of people (parking space being the foremost problem at that point). By the time we re-opened after the first Covid lockdown, we needed to limit the number of actual people too, as it was clear that overcrowding was fast becoming an issue. We settled on 50 people as a maximum, with Trips of more than around 20 people requiring two guides rather than one. I shudder to remember the occasional group Trips we used to do for tour companies of well over 100 people… with one herder. Incidentally, the biggest company that used to visit us – and had several groups on the calendar back in July 2009 – were an international student organisation who used the acronym ‘ISIS’. I think they probably changed their name at some point…

Some things never change in summer. Summer = lazy reindeer! Dr Seuss here is one of the laziest… Photo: Elke Mackenzie

Looking at the July 2024 rota, there are 13 names along the top. Most of us now work four day weeks, with the younger and newer staff on five day weeks (although it’s usually just a matter of time until a plaintive voice says ‘um, Fiona, about next year… I was wondering…’). Several staff now just work a couple of days a week alongside another job, so altogether there are heaps of us – along with a different volunteer each week, plus a regular weekend volunteer. In the summer holidays 6 staff work daily, plus the volunteer. How on earth did we sometimes manage with only three?! In the middle of summer! I guess we could at this point mention that collectively all the staff back then were a lot younger than the average nowadays, but even so… and also that suggestion makes me feel old.

But necessity demands change over time and bit by bit we have attempted to drag ourselves into the 21st century, bringing in bookings form and procedures the office rather than vague notes on a calendar; 1st aid training for all staff, and eventually an online booking system for visitors too. As I type Andi is in the process of upgrading our computers and digital storage systems in the office, as we’re at our wit’s end with them all. Progress. The new Centre building, currently half-built next door, will be the most obvious major jump forward, finally providing full accessibility to the Paddocks for all abilities. And a toilet for visitors (just the one mind, we’re not going too overboard)!

The biggest change of all. The old Paddocks and Exhibition…
…and the new Centre and Exhibition underway.

It’s important to make it clear however, that even when we move into the new building we intend to do our best to retain our ‘character’ – rather quaint perhaps, and very much a friendly, family run business. It’s a fine balance between visitor provision and ‘familiarity’ I think – bigger, ‘posher’ companies have designated staff doing designated jobs, but this leads to unfamiliarity between roles, and that is not a road we are willing to go down. The staff that serve you in the shop will be the same staff who look after the reindeer themselves, who do the office work, the maintenance, lead the guided tours… you get the picture. This was the case back in 2009 and remains the case in 2024 – everything changes but at the same time nothing changes.

Hen

Volunteer Blog: Emm’s visit – October 2023

When I arrived in October the first thing I noticed was the place was very different without Sookie as she would always greet me barking excitedly whenever I arrived at Reindeer House.

I went straight out to look for free-rangers with Ruth to make sure they weren’t on the road then went to the hill enclosure to split off the reindeer and meet the new calves and give them some preferential feed from the bag. Holy Moley was being very stubborn and other calves kept trying to get back through the gate.

Emm with Mississippi and her mum Holy Moley.

October is the rutting season and this year it involved the males Jelly and Sherlock who had their own females in different parts of the hill enclosure. The males get very boisterous and while I was there it was decided that Jelly should be taken off the hill and taken to Tilly at the farm for the safety of the other reindeer and the herders. After Jelly had been walked off the hill, I helped move some of the female reindeer around to put in with Sherlock. Kernel then came over from the farm to replace Jelly and was much better behaved for the remainder of the rut.

I was able to meet Winnie and Alba the hand-reared calves who were bottle-fed three times a day and remained on the hill. I was lucky enough to feed them a few times. They were very excited and would run over when we got the bottles out. Popsicle was thought to be underweight so we gave her a special feed and I had to give that to her and keep off the others who wanted to get into the bag. Another day we checked over the reindeer that had been with Jelly and took their temperatures.

Emm getting to know Alba.
Alba and Winnie – both incredibly laid-back lassies!

Holy Moley kept following me around and Mekong kept licking my coat which was very funny. I had seen Cicero licking a tree as it was covered in lichen earlier. When Sheena brought the free-rangers down later we saw some who had not been seen for a few months. We were always moving the reindeer around and Druid, Danube and Mekong were taken from the Paddocks to the hill enclosure. Lotti, Isla, and I took them and I led Druid. Lotti was on dog watch at the front of the group. One really interesting fact I found out was that Danube was Brie’s calf from this year and she had calved on her own on the free-range as no-one knew she was pregnant and it was a big surprise when she turned up with Danube later in the summer. Luckily she was fine and it shows how tough the reindeer are in their natural environment.

Cicero enjoying the lichen on a Scots pine.

On one Hill Trip we went to the enclosure to find only 22 reindeer with 12 missing. We had to go round after the visitors had gone to see who was missing and found 10 of them but Lotti eventually found the rest of them and some had been “flirting” with Sherlock near his part of the enclosure. At times I was able to spend time enjoying chilling with the main group in the enclosure. It was lovely to see Winnie and Alba very relaxed with visitors lying down and falling asleep.

The free-rangers would often appear and on one occasion they all turned up at the enclosure gate so we had to move them away as it was not their time to be in the hill enclosure. Another day we spotted some of the free-rangers on the road so Ruth went up and we could see her leading them away with the bag of food to keep them safe.

Christmas sleigh training was well underway and we had Poirot, Druid, Haricot, Olympic and two calves, Danube and Mekong. It was only Haricot’s third time pulling the sleigh and he was as good as gold. The experienced reindeer like Poirot were showing the others what to do. They were warmed up by walking and jogging them up to Glenmore Visitor Centre and back, then harnessed up and walked with two pulling from the front and two at the back with two calves. We went to Glenmore Campsite and back and I got chance to ride in the sleigh. We switched the reindeer over and did it again.

Haricot and Olympic pulling the sleigh with Emm enjoying the ride.
Emm leading Hemp and Adzuki off the hill.

A few days later we moved some reindeer around bringing Adzuki and Hemp down for sleigh training. It was their first time and they joined Poirot and Aztec who were the experienced ones who showed the others what to do. We went on the road to the Pine Marten Bar and back and all the reindeer including the new ones were superstars. There were amazed looks on people driving past in their cars but the traffic such as a bus and a lorry didn’t seem to bother them. I had the chance to be guiding the sleigh from the back and we were watching out for dogs all the time. We had to make sure we poo picked the path and car park afterwards and this was my job. A few days later with Amy and Cameron we took reindeer Adzuki, Clouseau with calves Darling and Orinoco on a walk to the Pine Marten bar. This was important to get them used to walking with a head collar on. The two experienced reindeer were showing them how. Again many surprised people in cars slowed down to look and it was funny when a bus driver stopped the bus to meet the reindeer and have a photo. I was walking at the front to make sure the cars slowed down.

Emm with Hemp at the back of the sleigh. Emm’s role at the back of the sleigh is to help push it up hill (although the front reindeer should do this!) and most importantly be the brakes on a down hill!

I was able to catch up with the dogs again and since we were last there Tuva, Tilly’s dog, had had five puppies who were all at Reindeer House and I was able to play with them, cuddle up and they all fell asleep on me. I also had a lovely time with Tilly’s grandchildren Marley and Hamish in the Paddocks doing the elf hunt and making antlers. The puppies were on a hard feed mix which we fed them and they were still suckling from Tuva.

A very important job – puppy sitting!
Emm and five sleeping puppies!

There were lots of other jobs with Brenda the van full of food ingredients from the farm to unload it and fill back up to return to the farm with food scraps for the pigs, new stock was in the shop with rulers, pencil cases, teddies and notepads so these had to be sorted out so I was kept busy.

It was very, very wet when we were there and there was some heavy rain so much so that on one occasion there was flooding in Aviemore with the  main road closed over the bridge. We had to delay one of the Hill Trips that day to allow people to arrive. There were lots of lovely rainbows when the sun did come out.

Emm had a very rainy week but being the optimist she is was able to enjoy the rainbows!

I had a great time as usual this year and it was so special to catch up with my lovely friends all the herders, meet lots of different people on the trips, meet all the new dogs and of course catch up with all the reindeer most of all. I can’t wait till my next visit.

Emm and one of Tuva’s pups!

Emm

Brie’s bottom lip!

This is a very silly blog, full of photos of the wonderful Brie!

Brie in September 2020. She is a pretty, pint-sized lass who usually grows petite antlers like above.

Brie is now 11 years old and is probably the smallest breeding female in the herd. But what she doesn’t have in size she certainly makes up for in attitude! She is very feisty to other cows and won’t take any messin’. The famous quote ‘Though she be but little, she is fierce!‘ perfectly sums her up!

She’s great fun to work with, and has reared some wonderful calves during her life. Cicero born in 2020 is one of the tallest reindeer in the herd, Beret born in 2021 is now a mum herself making Brie a granny, Sorbet born in 2022, Danube born in 2023, and now she has another wee female calf born this May and yet to be named. We did try to give Brie a year off motherhood in autumn 2022, but Brie had other ideas and Danube was a big surprise for us when they were found out free roaming in the hills together!

Anyway, I’ve noticed over recent years that I’ve built up a wee collection of Brie sticking her bottom lip out. I’ve not really noticed other reindeer doing this so I think it’s a Brie specialty! She certainly pulls off the “give me food, I’m sooooo hungry” look very well.

Brie in January 2022 with just a wee bottom lip visible.
Brie hoping for food – August 2022.
Brie with her calf Sorbet behind. Crumbs on her nose reveal she’s already been eating from the white bag! August 2022.
Brie looking very scruffy in July 2023 whilst out free roaming in the hills. She’s mid way through the moult and has the tell tale crumbs on her nose again.
Brie in August 2023 looking much smarter after moulting most of her winter coat out.
A very soggy Brie asking for a tasty snack!
Brie doing her very best “I’m sooooo cold, give me more food” face in March 2024. Sorry Brie, you’re not fooling us, just look at that thick winter coat.
Brie in August 2024 with her bottom lip and tongue on show yet again.
August 2024 with her new wee calf!
Every single reindeer in the herd has a folder on our computer system full of photos of them over the years. As I was flicking through Brie’s folder I noticed her bottom lip had even made it on to several adopt photos. This one taken in October 2022 by Hen.

Ruth

Book Now