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.
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 2021Cowboy on a frosty morning – December 2021Cowboy – December 2021Cowboy – February 2022Cowboy with one antler – March 2022Cowboy growing his new set of antlers and losing his winter coat – June 2022Cowboy still looking very scruffy but with bigger antlers then the previous pic – July 2022Cowboy 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?!
When sorting through antlers recently and selling various sets, I realised that female reindeer Marple has been kind enough to give us hers for the last three years in a row, which is very unusual. By ‘give’, I mean that she cast them in the hill enclosure, giving us a higher chance of coming across them as compared to losing them outside the fenced area – where they are rarely found. How kind of her!
Marple with a very characteristic expression!
Although I don’t have any of the sets here anymore, I do retain photos of each set sold for my records, so this seems like a good opportunity to talk about similarities from year to year for antler growth for a particular reindeer.
Marple grows what I would classify as a very ‘typical’ set of antlers for a reindeer – average size for cow antlers, with a ‘blade’ at the base on one side (the tine which comes down towards the nose), front points – originating a little higher – pointing forwards somewhat like a stag beetle’s pincers, and then upright shafts which have multiple tines coming off them.
One of my most regular questions on the Hill Trip is whether or not reindeer grow the same shape of antlers each year. The answer is emphatically a yes, though by no means identical. The photos below show Marple’s antlers from age 3, 4 and 5, and you can see they have the same basic layout from year to year.
Antlers age 3Antlers age 4Antlers age 5
But antlers vary hugely, so here’s a composite photo of a ‘pair’ of antlers from two very different bull reindeer, by way of illustrating the differences between individuals whilst still showing the basic layout of the blade, front points and upright sections.
Antlers from bulls Bandy and Gandi – Bandy’s is extremely simple up at the top and Gandi’s far more elaborate (but missing the blade at the base as it was on the other antler of the pair, of which I don’t have a photo).
So what affects how antlers vary from reindeer to reindeer? The answer is primarily genetics. Antler growth is genetically inherited, so a reindeer with parents with rather simple antler growth is unlikely to grow anything too fancy, and vice versa. One of the reasons that our big lad Sherlock grows such enormous antlers is that genes for excellent, huge antler growth run in his family line; both his mum Caddis and dad Atlantic grew huge antlers themselves – Caddis exceptionally so for a female. Marple grows very similar antlers to her mum Ochil, as seen below:
Marple’s mum Ochil (with Marple as a newborn calf!) showing the similarity of her antlers to Marple’s (inset).
Environmental factors affect antler growth too. Having enough energy to grow good headgear is dependent on being in good enough condition, so the grazing abundance and quality is important, which is obviously heavily influenced by the weather. Really hot weather can mean reindeer spend more time lying on snow patches to keep cool, or jogging about to try and evade flies that are buzzing around them, leading to less available grazing time. As I write it’s early July and 9 degrees and raining outside. I’m still having to wear a thermal top under my normal layers and I’m generally pretty grumpy about that fact, but the reindeer are loving life – grazing constantly with no flies around them at all. Every cloud…
Finally, a big part of antler growth is to do with body condition. This can be linked to environmental factors as we’ve just talked about, but other things also affect it, for example illness. A reindeer fighting an illness concentrates their energy on preserving body condition, and antler growth pauses as a result. It will start again if and when the reindeer recovers, but the damage is done and the antlers end up smaller, or slightly malformed, compared to a ‘normal’ year.
Merida with lovely antlers and no calf, and the following year with a much poorer set, but a calf at foot
Female reindeer raising a calf need lots of energy to produce milk, so their antlers often suffer over the summer months, being smaller and often rather wonky. Some reindeer are prime candidates for this – looking at you, Merida! – whilst Marple actually doesn’t struggle too much. At 6 years old she’s in the prime of her life and has energy to spare, so both a big calf and decent antlers in the same season are achievable. However, the difference is still noticeable to some extent: here are those three photos again – the first pair grown when Marple was three, with no calf at foot, and the second two grown in the subsequent years but both times with a calf at foot. The first pair are slightly taller and perhaps a little more elegant, whilst the others are a touch shorter and a bit ‘squatter’ (although a little chunkier as Marple matured).
With the Paris Olympics fast approaching I have been persuaded to put pen to paper ( or finger tips to keyboard ) to write about our very own reindeer, Olympic.
Olympic was born in 2012, the year of the London Olympics, hence his name and from the very start he stood out as a little bit different to the rest.
He was quite literally the black sheep/reindeer of his family! His mother Lilibet was a white/grey coloured reindeer who always produced light coloured calves, until Olympic came along and he was born dark brown and has remained a dark coloured reindeer all his life.
Mother and son in May 2012.Lilibet and Olympic in January 2013.
Olympic is a very quiet unassuming reindeer who often lingers away from the herd, often behind one of us. I used to think he just enjoyed our company, perhaps he does, but I also think he is a reindeer that is quite easily bullied by others and so the company of a kindly reindeer herder is often preferable.
Even at feed time, although he likes being hand fed he is not pushy about it, standing patiently beside us until a handful of feed or better still, a bag of feed, is offered to him.
Over the years he has been a stalwart of the Christmas teams, in the early years as one of the newbies coming up and now one of the trainers for the newbies. A quiet canny reindeer he is always a favourite among the Christmas reindeer. But now 13 years old the main Christmas work is undertaken by the younger reindeer and Olympic is cherry picked for a local school or community event. Not too far to travel and very easy once you get there!! Sounds like the best events for me to do!
Olympic is a favourite amongst all of us here, the only difference between us all is that I am Olympics favourite herder. I ‘hear’ a sharp intake of breath among my fellow herders, but it is of course true.
Olympic as a 2 year old in July 2014.Olympic and Haricot pulling the sleigh in Glenmore on a training session with Tilly and her grandchildren in the sleigh in October 2023. Olympic is the ‘old pro’ teaching Haricot how it’s done!Olympic mid-parade in Beverley – December 2023.What a handsome lad!
Fly aged 16 in October 2023 – looking great for an old girl!
We have written much in the past about one of our wonderful female reindeer, Fly. She has been one of the more iconic females in our herd over the years and as she was so dominant (and greedy) this meant she was a good leader during the winter months when we were fetching the herd. Over the years she has had some enormous calves who, like her, have lovely natures. Friendly, greedy but come with an independent steak and aren’t too pushy. Definitely a quality from their mother.
I myself had a soft spot for Fly and over the years grew rather fond of her. Her mum Fiddle was always quite a timid reindeer. You’d tend to see her tail disappearing over the next ridge rather than her following you nicely. Often taking the rest of the herd with her… Thanks Fiddle! Us herders wouldn’t necessarily describe Fly as super tame. She wasn’t pushy for hand feed, would often remain on the outskirts of the herd keeping herself to herself but there was something about her independent nature which I really liked. When you won her over it was so rewarding. She didn’t do things because we wanted her to, she did them cos she wanted to. Inevitably she was a very sweet reindeer in her older years and I don’t think any reindeer knew the hills better than her.
She has outlived most of her family, but still has her son Anster and nieces and nephews, Butter, Beanie and Rocket.
Fly and her newborn son Anster in May 2013.Anster as an older boy in September 2023, aged 10.Beanie, Fly’s niece, is now a breeding female. Keeping the family line going.
This next paragraph will explain losing Fly so don’t read it if you think you’ll find it upsetting. Just before Christmas while out on the free range Fly was spotted lying away from the herd, not bothered about staying with them when we took them up the hill for a feed. When we approached her afterwards she just seemed a bit down in the mouth. We lead her to a quiet spot where we knew she wouldn’t be bothered by people or dogs and gave her a good pile of food. She wasn’t running a temperature and she wasn’t injured either, just didn’t seem herself. A day or two later it became apparent that Fly was indeed on her way out as we found her passed away peacefully not far from where we left her. I know a lot of people may find this upsetting to read and don’t think we aren’t upset dealing with her like this, however, she was 16.5 years old and that is a great age for a reindeer. She had a fantastic life and I will speak about her with a smile on my face.
Fly leading the herd in March 2023 – even without antlers we could recognise her shape from afar.Fly closest to camera, leading the herd again.Reliably at the front of the herd! What a lovely girl she was.
What I will miss is heading to the hills in the winter to go and collect the herd and seeing her face as the first face approaching you. We can spot her a mile off, even when she had no antlers and I would always give her sneaky handfuls of feed while her and I were at the front leading the group in.
Cheers Fly, you’ve been great! Find previous blogs about her here and here.
As we are now in calving season, I have recently heard myself saying “she looks just like her big sister when she was a calf” or fellow reindeer herder Lotti saying “she looks exactly like her mum as a new born”.
So, it got me thinking, perhaps it’s time for another blog about family resemblances.
Emmental’s boys!
Emmental in 2020, with her pale coat and white nose.
Emmental is a beautiful, mature breeding female, now aged 11 years old. She is rather pale in colour with a white muzzle. Over the years she has been a successful mother and has three surviving sons named Olmec, Iskrem and Ob. Yes, we chose names all beginning with vowels. But that’s not their only similarity. They also all have white noses, just like mum! Looking back through photos of them all as calves it’s easy to confuse who is who.
Emmental herself aged four months old, in 2013.Olmec as a four month old calf in 2016.Olmec as an adult with very similar face markings to his mum!Iskrem also at four months old with the same beautiful colouring. Emmental with her calf six-month-old calf Ob who also has the white nose (November 2023).
Pony’s girls!
Pony was a rather notorious reindeer in our herd with serious amounts of attitude! She was born in 2011 and sadly passed away a couple of years ago aged 11, which is a fair age for a reindeer. She left us with four surviving offspring – two males Poirot and Cowboy, and two females called Suebi and Turtle. It’s the girls who can sometimes make me confused! Their both normal-coloured, their antler shapes are similar, and they have also both inherited some of Pony’s attitude! We have nicknamed Turtle, “Snapping Turtle” as she often waves her head and smacks her lips at us if we can walk past her too closely.
Pony in 2016 aged 5. Pony herself was very easy to recognise as she was missing the tips of her ears, but look at the shape of her antlers compared to her daughters Suebi and Turtle…Suebi in 2019 aged 3.Turtle in September 2023, also aged 3.Just for good measure, here’s Pony as a three year old too! Note lack of ear tips so very easy to identify.
Suebi and Turtle are both breeding females. Suebi has the lovely Scoop, a two year old male, and also is the mother of the twins Elbe and Alba. Turtle has Amur, who has just turned one and is proving to be a very sweet-natured lad. Time will tell whether they produce any lookalike females!
I’ll leave it there for now but who knows, perhaps I can write a third installment in the future as there are lots of other examples within the herd.
My chosen reindeer to write about this time is Lute, who was already a middle-aged female when I first started as a reindeer herder, back in 2007. She died quite a few years back now so the younger staff here won’t remember her at all. But I do, and writing these blogs is not only a nice way to get something written down about a reindeer who may otherwise gradually fade from the mists of memory, but also an enjoyable excursion for me in to my own memories.
January 2011
Lute was what we call ‘normal-coloured’, i.e. the standard brown colour that is most common amongst reindeer. But she stood out immediately in the herd and was therefore one of the very first reindeer I (and any other herders of a certain generation) learnt to tell apart from the others, as she walked strangely, crabbing along on a diagonal the whole time rather than walking straight. She must have injured her back at some point and damaged nerves permanently to cause this, but it wasn’t something that occurred in the hill enclosure where we might have been able to treat her, but rather out on the mountain free-range..
Lute with one of her calves, Ludo, displaying her typical squint stance. To add to the overall ‘odd’ look, she also had quite bulgy eyes!
Bit of a nuisance for a reindeer, come to think of it, as they normally conserve energy by their hind feet tracking right into the hoofprints left by their forefeet, saving energy when walking in snow for example. Perhaps Lute always made sure to walk in the middle of the herd where her hind hooves could follow someone else’s tracks? Despite her ‘disability’, Lute never really seemed to have any issue keeping up with the herd, so it had just become a quirk specific to her by the time I arrived on the scene. It did mean you could pick her out amongst the herd a couple of miles away through binoculars sometimes, making you look good in front of unsuspecting visitors/volunteers/new staff members when you said knowingly about the dots running down the hillside ‘ah yes, there’s Lute’.
Lute also stood out that first winter for me as she’d grown excellent, enormous antlers for a female reindeer. There must have been something in the water that year, as many of the females had incredible antlers, some despite also having a calf at foot (which normally saps their energy enough to reduce their antler growth). Most years, in the second half of her life anyway, she tended towards growing rather twisted, oddly-shaped antlers. Matching her twisted, odd gait!
Lute when I first knew her – her tall antlers contrasting nicely with Polo’s rounded ones, and Ring’s much smaller, simpler ones.
Good genetics ran in the family, it seems. Lute was one of 11 calves for her mum Ferrari, back in the days when we would let reindeer breed every year. Nowadays we tend to give them a year off from time to time. But Ferrari popped out calf after calf no bother, with Lute being the eighth. Lute herself went on to be a very productive cow too, also with 11 calves to her name, although not all of them survived to adulthood. When I started she had Bean at foot, and then in 2010 her calf Lace was the first newborn reindeer I ever saw. Lace is still with us today, now nearly 14, and has become a real leader amongst the herd. By this I actually mean ‘dominant and bossy’. She’s a much bolder character than her mum ever was – I don’t really remember Lute being anything other than gentle and mild, a real sweetheart.
Lute with Lace as a calf. Presumably mum Ferrari never taught her not to pee in the pool?
Lute bred some relatively shy offspring too, in particular Fada. But characteristics seem to skip generations sometimes, as Fada bred lovely calves usually, the standout being Hopscotch. Hopscotch is still with us today and is now the matriarch of a dynasty of reindeer, including Busby, Pip, Tub and Juniper among others. Quite a legacy for Lute’s family line!
Granddaughter Hopscotch and great-granddaughter Kipling.
Born in 2000, Lute (who was named in the ‘musical’ theme), lived to a good age, passing away out on the mountains in the autumn or early winter of 2013. Daughter Lace is a little older than that now herself, and another daughter, Wapiti, got to around 15 years old, so there are some good long-living genes running in the family still!
A few years ago, Andi started a series of blogs titled Dynasties after watching the David Attenborough series with the same title. These highlighted matriarchs within the herd, in particular some of our most successful breeders. I thought I would continue this theme and in this blog I will write about Spy. I have only know Spy as an adult reindeer, and she has always been notorious for being a feisty girl, in fact you can read an entire blog about why we are all a little afraid of Spy, written a couple of years ago by Hen: Spy – the reindeer we’re all a bit scared of – The Cairngorm Reindeer Herd.
Spy with some of the most beautiful (and pointy) antlers in our herd.Spy at 7 years old.
Whilst she is fairly wild most of the time, she becomes particularly terrifying when she has a newborn calf. Most of the reindeer, particularly the older mums are quite happy for us to be nearby their calves, knowing we won’t cause them any harm. Spy however will absolutely not let you anywhere near any of her calves, if you read through Hen’s blog linked above it will tell you all about the different tactics required at calving time. Whilst we curse Spy lots of the time, her fierce protection of her offspring makes her a fantastic mother and she has raised now 4 strong female calves; Morven, Dante, Florence and Sundae. In fact, all 11 of Spy’s surviving descendants are female, guaranteeing the continuation of her genetics.
Spy feeding Florence.
Morven was born in 2015 and was named in the ‘Scottish hill races’ theme. Morven has always been a fairly independent reindeer, like her mother. She’s definitely tamer but you still wouldn’t always guarantee being able to catch her out on the free-range. She’s one of the strongest and healthiest reindeer in our herd and herself has now had two daughters of her own, Pinto and Mochi.
Morven as a calf.Morven showing off her beautiful antlers.
Pinto was born in 2020 and despite being one of our Covid calves, is tamer than her mother yet again. It seems as though with each generation, Spy is diluted a little. Pinto has now had her first calf, the incredibly sweet Orinoco who was born last year. Orinoco is very sweet and tame, but not pushy at all, making her a favourite amongst herders. Mochi is also a real sweetie, she is now almost two years old but due to being one of the smallest of her year is often mistaken for a calf, which sometimes results in her getting preferential feeding along with the calves which she’s certainly not complaining about.
Pinto free-ranging in the winter.Orinoco on the free range aged 4 months old and clearly very relaxed in our presence already. Mochi as a calf, who looks much like her mum at the same age.
Dante was born in 2017 and is without a doubt one of the prettiest members of our herd. She also grows an impressive set of antlers each year, even whilst rearing a calf at the same time. Dante whilst also shy in nature, through years of bribery is now reliable to catch and a lovely reindeer to work with. She herself has now had three daughters, Mangetout, Glacée and Amazon.
Dante as a 2 year old.Dante fully grown.
Mangetout is now fully grown and mother herself, but I couldn’t resist this photo of her as a newborn calf! Mangetout is also tame enough to reliably catch, but occasionally granny Spy shines through as she shows us her beautiful (and pointy) antlers! Mangetout had her own calf this year who we have named Darling. There was some controversy over whether we would name a calf Darling, after the river in Australia. Some of the herders thinking it was a bit too ‘cute’. In the end we thought if we gave is to Mangetout’s calf (Spy’s great-granddaughter) she would almost certainly turn out to be the opposite! So far she has proved us wrong and is generally a lovely reindeer, although can be a bit of a menace if you try to stand between her and a bag of feed.
Mangetout as a new born calf in 2020.Mangetout at 3 years old.Darling with mum behind.
Dante’s middle daughter Glacée is now almost two and like her big sister, was also given a French name, the word for ice cream. Glacée is very recognisable as she’s got a big white tuft of hair between her antlers! Amazon, her younger sister, is without a doubt the most impressive calf born last year. Her antlers are absolutely huge, with elaborate splits in them and she’s just as tall as many of the yearlings.
GlacéeAmazon as a calf, already being mistaken for a yearling.
Florence is the next down in Spy’s daughters. She was born in 2019 as is named after the Italian city. I would say she is tamer yet again than either of her sisters, she is the spit of her mother in looks but temperament wise is much calmer. Florence has calved just once, and very sadly he didn’t survive his first summer. Florence is almost 5 so I have no doubt she will have many more breeding years in the herd and will go on to produce just as many wonderful reindeer as either of her sisters.
Spy and Florence.Florence at almost 3 years old.
Sundae is the youngest and last of Spy’s daughters. She was born in 2022 and named after an ice cream Sundae. Sundae has got a white nose, which she gets from her dad, Spartan. The rest of her features, including the big white rings around her eyes and her large slightly floppy ears, are all Spy! Sundae is now almost two years old and has lost her antlers a bit earlier than some of the others so currently spends feeding time doing her very best calf impression to sneak into the ‘calf only’ green feed sacs. Who can blame her though!
Sundae as a calf with Spy behind.Sundae and Spy a year later, still side by side.
Spy will be thirteen this year so whilst her breeding days are now behind her (cue huge sigh of relief from all the reindeer herders involved in calving season), her legacy will be continued by all her offspring. She currently has 4 daughters, 5 grand-daughters and 2 great-granddaughters, all of whom are either at breeding age or will be in the next couple of years. There is definitely no fear of the Spy line dying out in our herd, but diluting her ‘Spyness’ a little with each generation, is definitely no bad thing!
I’m lacking in inspiration, motivation and time to think of a new and so-far unused blog topic, so this week I’m going for the old tried-and-tested method – pick a reindeer and write about him/her.
This week’s subject is Okapi. I’ve known Okapi her entire life, and at 15 and a half years old, it’s a long life indeed. Whilst not right up there in my very, very top favourite reindeer, she’s always been in the upper echelons of the reindeer herd, and I reckon most other herders would agree – collectively amongst us, she’s held in extremely high affection.
Okapi was born in 2008, her mum Esme’s third calf. Esme was a lovely reindeer, and was actually the subject of our very first blog, back in 2015! I first met Okapi at a few months old, at which point she was easily distinguishable from the other 2008 calves by the silver hairs on her face, giving her the appearance of wearing war-paint.
Those silver hairs eventually spread across the rest of Okapi’s body, and although she is still want we would call ‘normal-coloured’, she’s a much greyer colour than many of the other reindeer in the same colour category. Coat colour runs in family lines – Esme was on the silvery side too, as were many other members of the family, most notably Okapi’s big brother Elvis. Elvis became a legendary reindeer in our herd, living to 17 and only passing away a few months ago.
Silvery-coated big bro Elvis
Okapi has always been a ‘leader’ in the herd, a relatively dominant female and generally one of the first to start moving in the right direction when we call the herd from a distance, leading them towards us. Reindeer like this are worth their weight in gold to us as a lot of the winter season is spent bellowing towards specks on a distant hill, and wondering whether they are going to come to us or we are going to have to go to them… It needs a dominant reindeer to sigh, stand up and start moving to get the rest of the herd underway too.
As a youngster, out free-ranging up on the mountains.
We usually like to breed from our loveliest female reindeer multiple times, but Okapi had a bit of a hitch in this respect. She had two lovely calves, in 2012 and 2013, Murray and Oka. Murray had the best set of antlers that we’ve seen on a calf in our herd, and we were very excited for what he would grow into in the future. Sadly it wasn’t to be, and he passed away at about a year old. Win some and lose some with animals, but this felt like a particularly hard loss.
Okapi with 8 month old Murray – look at those calf antlers!
Okapi’s second calf, Oka, was also lovely, but again didn’t survive long term – dying at about 2 years old. A huge shame, as a female she should have gone on to continue Okapi’s genetic line, but hey ho. Again these things happen, but it feels unfair for Okapi to have lost both her calves.
Oka
And that was that for Okapi’s motherhood career, as a few months after Oka’s birth she suffered a prolapse. This came completely out of the blue and we never knew what – if anything – triggered it, but the end result was that everything had to be pushed back into place more than once, and eventually permanent stitches were inserted by the vet to keep poor old Okapi’s bits where they should be. This meant no more calves for her – a real shame for a lovely 5 year old female in her prime.
Okapi’s classic pose – she’s a reindeer who almost always has her ears pricked. This is how I will remember her when she’s no longer with us.
But life as a permanently ‘single lady’ has meant Okapi has since been a lady of leisure, all her energy going into her own body each year, and quite possibly has contributed to her longevity. Almost every year she’s grown pretty big antlers, and it’s only really in the last couple of years she’s started to look ‘old’.
Never having calves at foot means that Okapi also spends a higher ratio of her time free-ranging out on the mountains, as there’s never really a reason for her to spend any length of time in our hill enclosure. She will come in now and then for a few days as all our reindeer need vaccinating a couple of times of year, or sometimes we’ll hold particularly friendly reindeer back in the enclosure so they can be part of a the group for filming, for example. But on average, I’d say Okapi spends 11.5 months a year out living a completely free lifestyle – pretty nice!
A life of luxury!
And finally, Okapi had one particular starring role – on the cover of our Naked Reindeer Herders charity calendar in 2023. But I don’t think too many people were looking at the reindeer, if I’m honest…
Okapi on the right,with Ochil, Ruth, Fiona, Marple and Lotti, left to right. What a line up!
I thought I’d write a bit about the family trees of our herd for this week’s blog, since they work a little differently from a ‘standard’ human family tree. Those of you who have been adopting an individual reindeer within our herd for a while will probably have received a family tree at some point, as we send them out with adoption packs in even years of sponsorship (2nd, 4th, 6th etc) normally. I say ‘will probably have received’ however, as the Swedish born reindeer in our herd obviously don’t have them, and if you’ve only ever adopted the herd as a whole then you’ll not have seen one before.
We record the lineage of the reindeer born here in the herd, stretching back to the original ones imported from Sweden in the 50s, through the maternal line only (on the trees at least – of course we record the father of each calf on our database to keep track of their genetics). More dimensions than a sheet of A4 can offer would be required for anything more than the maternal line in this form however. Let’s look at a sample of a tree (apologies, you’ll probably have to zoom in to see it properly):
(no, I didn’t mean to scan in a leaf as well as the tree…)
This tree (above) is the one currently in use for the living descendants of female reindeer Russia (highlighted in red), born in 2005. As an example, you would receive this particular tree if you adopt Morse – you can see that he is the second of four calves for his mum Torch, herself the first of three offspring for Pavlova. Pavlova’s mum was Russia, Russia’s mum was Cherry, and so on. This goes right the way back to Vilda at the top, one of the reindeer brought over to Scotland in the 3rd consignment to join the growing herd, back in 1954. This particular family tree currently stands at 10 generations in the maternal line. In reality it’s actually more than that, as Morse himself is a breeding bull with multiple offspring, but let’s just stick to the maternal line and not confuse matters!
Vilda in 1955, aged 2 years old. The ancestor of many, many members of our herd!
But again A4 paper has it’s limitations, and as Russia’s mum Cherry (highlighted green on the tree above) was such a productive breeding female then this tree has had to be split into multiple ones once all her calves started calving themselves and we ran out of space. So Cherry’s descendants are now on three separate trees, the top halves of which are all identical until Cherry and her nine calves, but then different below. So Cherry’s daughter Cello (highlighted red below) went on to lots of descendants mainly via her daughter Fonn, who are on this tree:
…whilst another daughter, Tjakko (highlighted red below), was also very productive, as seen on this version of the tree:
This explains why sometimes we chat away about a relative of your reindeer in your adoption letter – who doesn’t seem to exist on the tree you’ve also received in your pack. We haven’t made them up – they’re just on an adjacent branch of their tree that you don’t have!
At times we get a family line that effectively runs out of breeding females – a so-called ‘dead line’. Not the nicest of names perhaps, but it is what is says on the tin… Tjakko’s tree, above, is an example of this – the only living female still remaining on it is Ibex, now too old to breed, so this tree will never change. As a result in this situation we stop sending the trees out to adopters once they’ve received it in it’s final state, as there’s no point receiving it again and again with no additions. Ibex does actually have descendants but they are on yet another permutation of this tree, showing her offspring and those of Bumble.
Within the animal world, there is quite a ‘flexible’, shall we say, approach to age and generations, in comparison to humans at least. We tend to breed our female reindeer up to the age of around 12 or 13, but usually only with a bull aged 3-5. This is because we castrate our male reindeer at this age, but females are never castrated as there’s no need for us to do so. Reindeer calve first (usually) at age 3, so a 3 year old bull could be three generations younger than some of his ladies, if he has a 12 year old cow in his harem. Questionable, in the human world anyway, but no reindeer eyebrows are raised.
5 year old bull Sherlock during this year’s rut, with his older ladies (left to right) Feta (10), Jenga (12) and Torch (11).
The shortest family tree I can find is that of Okapi, consisting of only 8 generations in total including Vilda back in 1954. But again this is a family that has calved itself into a breeding cul-de-sac, as it were, with no new additions since 2013. In contrast, the most generations in a tree is 13, with two year old Sombrero and yearling Solero the most recent of the generations.
Okapi’s family tree (she has outlived both of her calves).
I thought that as a final part to this blog – and a way of getting some photos of actual reindeer into it – here’s some photo evidence of the 8 generations of Okapi’s tree. Vilda we’ve seen already, and I can’t actually find a photo of Sarah. We will no doubt have one in the albums, but we’ve only digitised up to the early 60s so far so I don’t have one to hand… But then comes Eidart, who was apparently the first reindeer that herd owner Tilly ever met, when she arrived here in 1981:
Eidart, with one of her calves
Eidart’s final calf was Trout, who held the joint record for oldest ever member of the herd (aged 18) for many years, until 19 year old Lilac stole her crown.
Trout in her latter years
Trout was an extremely productive female, with 11 calves to her name, the final one being Amber:
Amber
…whose first calf was Esme….
Esme
…the mother of Okapi.
Okapi
And finally – the end of the line – came Oka. Sadly she died before producing any offspring herself, effectively bringing this line of reindeer to an abrupt end.
Oka
So there you have it, a bit of info about our family trees. So should you get one in your next adoption pack, you can think about all those reindeer who came before your lovely adoptee.
