April has been a busy month with some glorious spring weather and some incredibly wild winter weather too. The first half of the month saw the Easter Holidays so we had lots of visitors around – some days we put on an additional Hill Trip in the afternoon when the morning visit sold out, and in the afternoons we ran “Seasonal Herder Talks” in our Paddocks. The second half of the month was busy with moving reindeer around getting them in the right places for the fast-approaching calving season… exciting! Pregnant females were brought into our hill enclosure and the “single ladies” (mostly the old girls retired from breeding or ones having a year off motherhood) were put back out to free range after a quick health check in the enclosure.
It’s been a fun month watching antlers casting and growing, and bellies widen on our pregnant females! Bring on calving season!
It’s the last blog of the month and so time for another photo dump! March has been a relatively quiet month, with the Paddocks shut and fewer visitors around, but it’s still felt very busy for us herders! Generally only four members of staff work each day throughout March. The mornings are taken up by two herders heading out to find and move the free ranging herd, and the other two herders lead the Hill Trip at 11am. So, by the time we’ve all had lunch the afternoons seem to totally fly by. We also had some very snowy and wintery weather in the middle of the month, making our lives a little more interesting and keeping us on our toes! Hopefully, we’ve managed to tick off all the important jobs in time for the Easter Holidays which kick off on the 1st of April.
It’s the last blog of the month, so here we have a selection of photos I’ve taken during February. The early part of the month was all about crossing jobs off the to-do list ready for us to re-open to the public on the 11th of February for the busy half-term holidays. The second part of the month has been all about locating the reindeer and moving the herd into a suitable position for our Hill Trips each morning, the Hill Trips themselves, and afternoon talks in the Paddocks. Plus all the usual shop and office work. As always, the holidays are over in a blur, but here are some photos of our beautiful reindeer, giving a small taster of February for you all.
A final point – if you are wondering where all the young bulls and Christmas reindeer are in the photos, they spend the winter free ranging in a different herd that Tilly and other colleagues at the farm mostly look after. I’ve not been to visit them myself this month hence why it’s just photos of our beautiful girls and some male calves that you’ll find in this month’s blog.
Like any new reindeer herder, when I first started in May 2017 I quickly had to learn lots of reindeer names. A daunting task when we have around 150 in the herd! But it is very important as knowing their names means we can look after their welfare better by spotting when somebody is acting unusually and learning how best to handle each and every reindeer. Each reindeer is an individual with their own personality quirks, just like us humans!
I would frequently ask for help from Fiona, Hen and Andi in particular. “Who’s this one again?!”… most of the time they would give me very helpful clues and tips, so I slowly began to learn subtle markings or personality traits. For example, Oatcake has a white ‘O’ above her right eye, Feta has a short face, Wapiti is missing the very tops of her ears, and if you just see a reindeer bottom walking away from you it could well be Enya!
But sometimes they would say “oh they just look so like their mother/father/granny/sibling”. I used to find this very unhelpful! I don’t know their mum!! But, a few years down the line, I am finding I’m doing this myself. So, here’s a blog with a very small selection of some of our lovely reindeer who I think look very similar to a relative.
There’s plenty more but perhaps I’ll save that for another blog in the future.