Tag: Cairngorms

Posted on

Volunteer Blog: Emm’s visit in September 2024

The September visit was very special. We were lucky enough to attend Fiona and Joe’s wedding and celebrations. They got married on top of Meall a’ Bhuachaille, the hill behind Reindeer House. It was a very wet and windy day but it was so special being on top with Fiona, Joe and everyone and the dogs and to see them get married. A person was playing the bagpipes too which was very magical. We all went to the Pine Marten Bar afterwards for some food, drink and dancing. Then there was a fantastic weekend of celebrations at Badaguish involving a second wedding ceremony and wedding photos and of course reindeer. The reindeer who attended were Busby, Magnum, Hemp and Dr Seuss. The weather was so lovely and there were lots of sunshine. The other celebrations included a ceilidh, Highland games, fun run, a loch swim in Loch Morlich, where I paddled this time, and lots of music, food and drink. It was so lovely seeing everyone and it was very being special being part of the really fantastic wedding celebrations.

Fiona and Joe on a very soggy but utterly beautiful wedding day.
Fiona and Joe with Busby, Hemp and Dr Seuss!

I was very lucky enough to be invited to attend the naming meeting of the calves. I sat around the table in the kitchen of Reindeer House with my herding friends and had tea and cake with them whilst they decided on the names of the new calves the theme this year being Teas and Coffees.

The calves had grown so much since I had last seen them in May. They had just come into the hill enclosure from the free range with their mums. They were much bigger and braver. Helsinki’s premature calf was doing so well. His name is Irish after Irish coffee.

Latte (Brie’s calf) and Emm!

So much had changed in the new Reindeer Centre building. Tilly with her grandchildren gave me a tour of the new Centre. The stairs had been put in and the walls plastered. Sinks, pipes and the boiler had been put in. It looked so amazing. It is slowly getting there and is so exciting. It will be brilliant. We went outside to see where the reindeer Paddocks will be.

One morning, Poirot and Mivvi were outside the hill enclosure entrance gate. They had got out of the enclosure somehow. They were put back in and Isla walked around the fence line of the whole hill enclosure to see where they had got out. The fence line is 8km and the hill enclosure is 1,200 acres. She found out that someone had left the gate open down in the woods near Utsi’s hut so she shut it. 

Emm and Mivvi.

I had a big surprise one morning on the Hill Trip, as I got out the reindeer van in the carpark and a lady came over to me and I realised it was a lovely lady from our local art shop where I am from. She was with her husband and they were on their honeymoon. They were so surprised to see me as they didn’t know I was up and thought I would be up later in the year. They were visiting because of me as I often go into their art shop back and show her and her colleagues my reindeer photos and tell them all about the reindeer and they got very interested. It was such a lovely surprise to see her and her husband and it was so brilliant taking them up to see the reindeer. That was such a special day.

I had time to chill and enjoy the reindeer which I really find special. One day after a morning Hill Trip, the reindeer were lying down in groups. They were chilling, dozing or asleep. One of the calves, Irish, was twitching in his sleep and his eyes were rolling. Hemp was asleep and snoring. I went around taking photos and selfies and Caterpillar was following me as I had the hand feed bag. She tended to follow me during Hill Trips because of the hand feed bag and because she is a shy reindeer we had been giving her hand feed out of the bag after the Hill Trips to get used to being handled. One day after another Hill Trip, Silk and Suebi from the free range turned up outside the hill enclosure fence. They followed Ruth and Lotti, who had a food bag, into the hill enclosure. They had been trying to get Silk into the hill enclosure for a wee while with little success as she is a very shy reindeer so everyone was really pleased she came into the hill enclosure.

Emm and a bunch of snoozy reindeer, including Morse with those whopping antlers behind.
Christie and Espresso having a nap.

I got to help again treat some poorly reindeer when Pumpkin’s calf, called Lapsang, had been lying flat out on the hill trip. We took her temperature and it was very high. I held onto Pumpkin, who was on a head collar, whilst Ruth and Isla were dealing with Lapsang as Pumpkin was a protective mum. Most reindeer are not protective but Pumpkin was but Ruth was able to give Lapsang an injection to bring down the temperature and Isla led them both to the shed in the hill enclosure where to keep an eye on them.

At the end of my stay my herder friends surprised me by bringing Scully my adopted reindeer down from the hill. I was so pleased to see her. They had gone out to get Florence and her calf Cuppa off the free range there and bring them back to the hill enclosure to start getting Cuppa used to people and being handled. They also brought four more reindeer back including Scully which was so special. This was at the end of the day on my last working day so the next morning I went up on the morning Hill Trip to see Scully which was so brilliant. I got to hand feed her and Ruth took lovely photos of me with her.  

Scully and Emm on the last day of Emm’s stay.

So, I have shared with you some of the memorable highlights of 2024 being with the reindeer and my herder friends. It was such a special time as always. I am really looking forward to being with the reindeer in 2025 with my first visit in February. I am so excited and am counting down the days till my next visit.

Emm and Dr Seuss.

Emm

Posted on

The End of an Era

This spring, I had a Significant Moment.

Reindeer live for an average of 12-13 years, with 17 or 18 being an exceptional lifespan, and I have now worked here since November 2007 – getting on for 18 years. In 2023, it got to the point where only a small handful of old reindeer still remained in the herd who had been alive when I first arrived, with everyone else having been born in the duration of my employment.

These five, Lulu, Enya and Elvis (born in 2006) and Fern and Fly (born in 2007), became the ‘oldies’, outlasting many reindeer who were younger than them. I thought of them as my gang of old buddies, the only reindeer to have been here longer than me. Lulu in particular was a real character and a favourite of mine – you can read a previous blog of mine about her here.

Fern in 2018 in her heyday, aged 11 and with an incredible set of antlers.
Handsome Elvis with his silver coat.
Fly looking shocked that I wanted to take her photo!

But after a couple of years of the situation not changing, 2023 rolled around and in the second half of the year, suddenly we lost Lulu, Enya and Elvis close together. My cohort of oldies was down to two! Fly managed another few months before her time came, leaving just Fern, older by a year to any others in the herd. But Fern was in remarkably good condition for a reindeer aged nearly 17. Big antlers for an old girl and in really good condition, though by late summer 2024 she was definitely looking a bit ‘older’ in comparison.

Fern in February 2024 at nearly 17 years old – looking incredible still.

Throughout winter 2024/2025 Fern continued to soldier on, in better condition than some of her younger buddies other than a bit of arthritis that we could manage with pain relief. We saw that part of the reindeer herd at least every day or two through the winter (in summer we see the females much less) and in the latter part of the season it started to become apparent that Fern’s sight was declining.

We made the hard decision to put her down at the end of the winter, at the point when we would naturally stop seeing the females daily as they move away to their summer pastures. Whilst she may have continued on for a few more months, the potential of her injuring herself accidentally out on the mountains and suffering a slow end without us knowing about it was a risk we were not willing to take – welfare always has to be the first priority for our animals.

My last photo of Fern, taken about 5 weeks before she died. Snoozing in the sunshine!

With the passing of Fern, the whole herd has now completely changed since I started. Gazelle, Sika and Sambar are now 17 years old (Gazelle the oldest by about a fortnight), and I have known them for their entire lives, and this feels like quite a significant point in my time here. Possibly mainly because it’s making me feel even older than usual, but hey ho.

Hen

Posted on

Family resemblance

Just like people, some reindeer have huge resemblance within their families, and some more so than others. I thought I’d write a wee blog to talk about a couple of the best examples in our herd today – and then I discovered that Ruth had beated me to it. So here’s a couple more examples of striking family resemblance, and you can read Ruth’s ‘Mini-me’ blog here.

Family ‘looks’ run especially strongly in Holy Moley’s family. She herself is the spitting image of her mum Galilee, and Holy Moley’s daughter Mississippi popped out looking like a carbon copy too. Here are Mississippi and Holy Moley in the photo above, taken in September 2024 when Mississippi was 16 months old – whilst obviously smaller still as she’s not full-grown, the resemblance is uncanny. Holy Moley only grows a single antler each year due to an injury as a calf, and it seems Mississippi even tried to emulate this look by breaking hers! I’d loved to have had the opportunity to photograph Galilee alongside the two of them, but sadly she died when Holy Moley was only 4 months old.

This is half-brothers Jelly and Cicero, who are both extremely similar. Jelly is a touch darker, but both grow matching antlers and for much of the year they can be pretty hard to tell apart, especially as they are the same age as each other. The best family resemblance of all is between their dad Houdini and Cicero (on the right in the photo), but once again I’ve never had the opportunity to get a photo of them all together, and Houdini is now very old and age has now changed his appearance somewhat. Houdini was originally born in Sweden and imported to join our herd in 2011, hence we bred from him a fair bit to use his ‘fresh’ genetics, but these two offspring are the most similar in appearance, both to him and to each other. All three grow relatively simple antlers for males, with not too much going on at the tops compared to some reindeer.

There are some other good examples in the herd, but it can be difficult to get photos of certain individuals together, so maybe I’ll add another blog further down the line when opportunity arises!

Hen

Posted on

Antler shapes

Antlers are my ‘thing’, here at the Reindeer Centre, so it’s a natural subject to turn to for a blog when Ruth is starting to look a little twitchy about needing the rest of us to crack on and provide her with some blogs to keep her going through the calving season (no chance of having enough time to write any then!).

I thought I’d write about different antler shapes amongst female reindeer in this blog, as there is so much variation. Reindeer tend to grow the shape shaped antlers from year to year, but there are factors that influence it, such as general body condition, or whether they’ve got a calf at foot to raise – so more variation tends to be seen amongst the females from year to year than the males.

I’ll start with Marple, above, who I would say grows very much the ‘average’ style of antlers. Upright shafts with multiple tines growing backwards from them; forward-pointing tines originating from the base, and a ‘blade’ – a tine from one antler growing towards the nose. I’ve written more about Marple’s antlers in the past here. However, we also see a wide range of shapes from year to year, such as:

The ‘Bonsai’: Indigo’s antlers are very convoluted and wiggly here!
The ‘Salad tongs’: Meadow grew this incredible set of antlers as a two year old – I’m not sure what happened to them but they would have made excellent salad tongs!
The ‘Ant’: Merida’s efforts in 2024 were, quite franky, ridiculous.
The ‘Unicorn’: Multiple reindeer over the years have only produced a single antler, such as Dixie here. It’s a natural occurance that just happens sometimes.
The ‘Gate hooks’: If you’re going to grow a gate hook on your head, might as well grow two! Russia looks very strange….
The ‘Lazy antlers’: Israel couldn’t be bothered to put too much effort into her antlers this year, but all the effort went into her body instead. Look at those rolls of back fat!!!
The ‘I don’t need no antlers’. Arnish was a ‘polled’ reindeer, one who never grew antlers, but she was built like a tank so no-one messed with her at all – the lack of antlers certainly didn’t hinder her in the herd!

Read more about polled reindeer in a previous blog here, and if you’re wondering whether we ever sell antlers, you can find out here. There’s more general info about antler growth here too.

Hen

Posted on

Calving, cuckoos and cotton grass!

Every reindeer herder looks forward to May – it’s pretty much the best month of the year for us with calving time for the reindeer dominating it. But May is also one of my absolute favourite months for other reasons too, the trees are coming into leaf, the plants in my garden are growing like mad, the weather is generally fairly amenable, and the migrant birds are back.

May looks like THIS to reindeer herders!

Mention May to any reindeer herder and calving is – I guarantee – the first thing that pops into their head. Reindeer are very seasonal with their breeding, and whilst the occasional calf might be born in the last few days of April, the vast majority arrive in May every year. Calving is a wonderful time of year for us – who can resist the cuteness of a a newborn reindeer? – though it comes with a fair amount of stress too, as we do our best to keep everyone happy and healthy. You’ll find lots of blogs about calving if you use the search function on the blog page here (only visible on a laptop/desktop) if you’d like to know more. Plus lots of lovely photos – of course!

Calves Gelato and Zoom at couple of weeks old

But I have other connotations for the month of May. The second one are the cuckoos. We’re lucky enough to still get plenty of cuckoos in this area, although nationwide they have declined by about 65% since the early 1980s. Even the least ‘birdy’ person in the UK surely knows their iconic call, and I associate them so much with May. They call from the forest below the reindeer’s hill enclosure all through the month, and the far-carrying sound is so reminiscent of all the early mornings over the years that I have trudged about on the hill side looking for cows with their newborn calves. Cuckoos seem to stop calling earlier than some species, I’ve noticed, and already as I write (early June) I realise that I’m barely hearing them any more. Such a short season, and yet they are utterly ingrained into our conscious in spring! Read more about other migrant species who are summer visitors to us in one of my previous blogs here.

The third thing I really associate with May here in the Cairngorms is the cotton-grass (Hare’s-tail Cotton-grass, to be precise), which grows on acidic moorland and is familiar to many, with it’s bobbing cotton-wool like flower heads.

Hare’s-tail cotton-grass
Fab as a calf

It’s not actually a grass but a sedge, and some years give particularly good displays, where it can almost look like it has snowed. It comes into flower in May, and grows particularly well in the bottom of our hill enclosure on the flatter areas there, which tends to be where the cows and their calves hang out during the month.

Calving in the cotton-grass… A very grumpy looking Brie with her grey calf Latte, and Peanut and her calf Kuksa in between.

So there we are – the three ‘c’s that are incredibly strongly associated with May to me. The fourth would be ‘chaos’, but that’s part and parcel with calving so can be combined into one!

Hen

Posted on

Reindeer personalities

The longer we work with the reindeer the more we see their individual personalities, this is one reason I love working with these incredible animals! They are all so unique, and learning all their quirks and characters means we can work with and handle the reindeer better. This wee blog shows a few of their character traits…

The one with the puppy dog eyes…

Bordeaux has a sweet-natured soul with big, beautiful eyes which she likes to use on weak-willed reindeer herders. At the end of each Hill Trip she likes to wander up to the herders and batter her eyelashes at them in the hope she gets to put her head in the white bag containing tasty treats! To be fair to Bordeaux this is most likely a learnt behaviour. A couple of years ago she had a bad summer and came in off the free range in poor condition. We spent a couple of months carrying a special bag of food on to the hill for her containing an extra extra-calorific food mix in order for her gained weight before the harsh winter months. She clearly got used to this special treatment and now can’t understand why she’s not allowed any extra!

Bordeaux licking the evidence of her nose.

The labrador…

Busby is a very lovely and very friendly lad! When he was a calf he was actually rather shy and took a little while for his cheeky nature and fairly outrageous levels of greediness to really shine! The photo below sums his character up well: Isla trying to get past him and Busby making sure that he’s 100% been seen so surely there’s some food in that white bag for him. Reindeer don’t like to be stroked and patted but if there’s a bag of food around, Busby will tolerate most things! He’s also a great poser so often appears on social media especially over the summer months when he’s often in our hill enclosure here on Cairngorm.

Busby doing his absolute best to make sure Isla notices him!

The ‘Danger Reindeer’…

Pumpkin is a feisty girl with bags of attitude! She’s dark in colour and very beautiful so people often want to take photos of her or with her. She’s not shy around people and loves hand feeding from our visitors. BUT if you catch her in a bad mood then you may know about it, she’s well known for waving her antlers at people and even snorting! This means herders on Hill Trips are constantly keeping a wee eye on her and often have to apologise for her bad behaviour – “please don’t take it personally, that’s just Pumpkin!”

Beautiful Pumpkin – who wouldn’t want to get a photo of this beautiful lass! Photo from September 2024.
Even without antlers Pumpkin can be a bit scary! This was me trying to take a lovely photo of Pumpkin next to her daughter Lapsang, and I get the ears back look and snorted at!

The greediest of all…

Aztec! Arguable, but surely most herders would agree?! In 2022 he was officially crowned the title after herders voted on it – read that blog here. He is very friendly, the class clown, and even though Aztec will be 9 years old in the spring he shows no sign of slowing down. Multiple times, I’ve witnessed him jumping over fences from a standstill at the merest rustle of a bag on the other side – he’s very athletic! Aztec during hand-feeding sessions on Hill Trips adds a bit of drama to the day. He has no patience and inhales the food from one pair of hands in milliseconds before heading to the next pair of out-stretched hands, and then the next… Thankfully he grows relatively small antlers so he’s not wheeling around huge headgear. If you foolishly allow him to get into a white bag, then good luck to you! He ploughs his nose to the ground making it almost impossible for you to remove his head and can be rather embarrassing in front of 50 people on a Hill Trip. What a boy!!

Trying to take Aztec for some exercise whilst on Christmas tour is hard-going when the trees are covered in this much lichen!
Here he is free ranging in March 2024 looking all innocent!

Sweet as pie…

Diamond – she’s so lovely! She’s an old girl now at 13. She’s had a permanent limp since spring 2019 and since then she’s been retired from breeding as we don’t want her putting additional strain on her body. As she now doesn’t breed, she gets to spend most of her life out free ranging in the mountains. I’ve had several lovely encounters with Diamond on the free range where she always seems genuinely pleased to see you, and very gently and politely takes some food! The photo below is of Cameron and Diamond casually walking across the Cairngorm plateau. We bumped into her by herself, and she decided to follow us all the way to a lovely safe spot, closer to home. We got some funny looks as we strolled past hill walkers who were doing double takes at our four-legged friend! Hard to believe, but she is the granny of the ‘Danger Reindeer’ above – how is that possible when Diamond is this sweet?!

Cameron casually scrolling across the hill with the lovely Diamond.

The snorer…

Perhaps snoring isn’t a personality trait, but in the warmer summer months Clouseau loves to lie in the exact same spot, snoring away. It’s just off the boardwalk, right by the gate so all our visitors get to experience the sweet snores as he dozes off and waits for the next meal to arrive! He’s actually a rather cheeky chap but boy does he know how to relax!

Turn up the volume! The gentle sounds of Clouseau snoring away in his favourite summer spot!

The last one…

Vienna is a really sweet lass. She’s friendly, greedy, sweet-natured, and a beautiful, unusual colour. However, annoyingly she is most often at the back of the herd trailing along with no haste whatsoever! For other reindeer if they’re being sluggish at the back it’s a sign we may need to check their temperature as they could be feeling a bit under the weather. But we have learnt that for Vienna, that’s just her!

Surprise, surprise! Vienna is the last reindeer through the gate for her breakfast! December 2024.
Can you see the herd stretching out right into the middle of the photo? Yep, that’s Vienna’s bottom closest to the camera right at the very back as always.

I could go on and on but I think I’ll stop there… maybe I could write a second instalment in the future!

Ruth

Posted on

Cuppa – from calf to yearling!

I was having a photo clear out the other day (my phone is embarrassingly full of reindeer photos) and realised I have taken lots of photos of Cuppa over the past 12 months. Florence, Cuppa’s mum, was my “calving bet” so I think I was particularly invested in her wee boy! For any reader unfamiliar with the herder’s annual calving bets you can read this blog here. So, here’s a collection of photos to see how the little fella has grown up over the past year.

Florence and her new born boy! He was born on the 22nd of May 2024, this was taken a few days later on the 26th.
Florence’s calf also on the 26th of May – just look at those “eyebrows”!
10th of June – Cuppa next to his mum a few weeks later and already bigger and bolder. He headed out to free range for the summer the next day.
19th of June: I was lucky enough to bump into Florence and Cuppa whilst they were out roaming freely in the hills. They looked so happy up in lovely herd of other cows and calves.
This is from the same day as above but just makes me smile – Florence coming over to say hello and Cuppa behind with those distinctive brows!
The next picture I have of Cuppa is this one from September the 15th so a jump of 3 months. It’s actually Andi’s photo after Cameron successfully caught him and put him on a halter so they could be walked back into the hill enclosure. What a size difference compared to June! He’s now in his smart summer coat and has grown antlers. Mum Florence is on the left, Lolly is on the right.
This is Florence and Cuppa in the hill enclosure on the 3rd of October. Compared to the other calves, Cuppa is one of the smallest of 2024. We believe he had a illness in late summer/early autumn, just before coming back into the hill enclosure from the free range. As you can see he’s cast his antlers already – often a sign of illness. Thankfully with some extra food and Florence by his side he’s rallied around and has grown in to a cheeky confident wee reindeer as you’ll see…
13th of December – Cuppa and Florence looking great! Compared to the last photo you can see his winter coat has really grown through… and Florence has broken an antler.
15th of January – After Cuppa attended a couple of Christmas events and with the Christmas holidays over, the pair are now now back out free ranging in the hills and doing really well, he’s never too far from Florence.
13th of February – Cuppa and Florence in the sunshine. He’s growing in confidence and cheekiness by the day!
26th of February – The pair up high on a ridge before being moved down for the daily Hill Trip. Cuppa clearly wanted a lie-in this morning.
12th of March – Winter is back!
Cuppa and Florence on the 7th of April 2025. The pair are often still together but as you’ll see from the photos rather than being rather shy and sticking behind Florence, Cuppa is now much bolder and comes extremely close on the hunt for food.
Cuppa on the 25th of April. Cuppa has remained close to Florence’s side for the last 11 months but now he’s almost a year old, they have been separated. Cuppa has joined up with a big herd of male, at our second site in Glenlivet. He’s doing really well and as you can see is beginning to grow another set of antlers. Meanwhile…
… Florence is doing well and is having a well-deserved year off from motherhood, which means she’ll be able to spend the vast majority of it free ranging in the hills. Here’s Florence (and her mum Spy behind) on the 29th of April enjoying herself on the free range and beginning to grow a lovely set of new antlers.
Cuppa on the 18th of May – a few days before his 1st birthday!

Ruth

Posted on

Photo Blog: April 2025

April has been a glorious month! The first half of it was wall-to-wall sunshine for what felt like weeks on end. The reindeer were on the move quite a lot so it meant some big walks getting them each morning keeping us all fit. By the middle of the month we brought some of our (hopefully) pregnant reindeer into the enclosure so it’s been a busy time with reindeer everywhere: on the free range, in the enclosure, in the Paddocks, and of course over with Tilly at the farm. The Paddocks was very busy during the holidays with visitors and even though the Exhibition isn’t ready yet we’ve got a wee quiz for kids, lots of information boards to read, and of course four beautiful reindeer on display! Hopefully everybody who visited had an enjoyable time.

Very excitedly we’ve also had our first calf of the season!! A lovely wee boy who is doing incredibly well. Hopefully the May photo blog will be packed full of calves!

5th of April: Solero is looking fantastic at the moment. She’s in excellent condition and is just beginning to grow her antlers.
5th of April: Whilst customers are allowed to bring dogs into the shop in the new Centre, staff have to keep dogs next door at Reindeer House. This is Elsie and Ginger waiting patiently for us at 5pm telling us it’s time to go home!
6th of April: Winnie leading the free ranging herd.
7th of April: Feta and her son Earl Grey looking great on a beautiful spring day.
9th of April: Lotti and I had a wonderful morning retrieving the free roaming herd. They were quite high up, above the cloud.
9th of April: Almost three-year-old Lolly and her mum Oatcake hanging out together.
9th of April: Moving the herd down to the Hill Trip location. This photo makes me laugh! Unfortunately I didn’t notice the photo-bomber until afterwards and my ID isn’t good enough to work out who it is.
9th of April: Sherlock and his ridiculous antlers! He looks like he should be in June, not April, with the size of those antlers!
10th of April: Lapsang relaxing after a Hill Trip.
10th of April: Shannon cooling her feet down in a bog.
12th of April: Scully has spent the winter free ranging at our second site. She’s now back in the enclosure and is in excellent condition.
14th of April: Colorado is a going to be two on the 1st of May. He’s a very handsome boy!
15th of April: Amazon is such a beauty! She will turn two on the 3rd of May.
16th of April: Turtle coming in to say hello and see what’s in my white bag! She can be a little fiesty so I wasn’t entirely sure whether she was about to tell me off or not – on this occasion she didn’t thankfully!
18th of April: Hopscotch and Juniper eating from the same pile of food – mother and her almost 5 year old daughter!
23rd of April: Dante looking beautiful and just beginning to grow his antlers.
24th of April: Sheena and I caught up with some of the free rangers. This is Nuii leading the way.
24th of April: Sika looking great for almost 17, and Hobnob behind will be 16.
25th of April: Fab being inquisitive.
25th of April: Two brothers, Espresso and Colorado, hanging out together.
28th of April: The first calf of the year!! Already very bold and coming over to say hello to Lotti!
29th of April: Mississippi and her mum Holy Moley came into the enclosure by themselves to check in, after being out free ranging in the hills. Always a joy to see the free rangers wander in!
30th of April: Sorbet, Vanilla, and Hopscotch on another beautiful day!

Ruth

Posted on

Building up to calving

With only a week or so to go until we could be seeing the first reindeer calves born, here are a few things which are preparing us, and the reindeer, ready for the big event. There aren’t any pre-natal classes for the reindeer but there is a pattern that we tend to stick to at this time of year. About 4-6 weeks before calving all our reindeer need an annual vaccination which was done at the end of March. At this time the herd are still free ranging so we brought them into our mountain enclosure for a couple of days for this as it can leave them feeling a little grotty. They then go back onto the free range for a few more weeks.

Zambezi leading the herd down for breakfast under a brilliant blue sky at the beginning of April.

This year we had an extremely hot and sunny start to April. This also coincided with the Easter holidays and the combination meant we were seeing extremely busy hills with day trippers and hikers. The hot weather was a little tough on the reindeer so they’d seek the cooler climes higher on the hill which meant for a longer walk to find them each morning. Of course, us herders had no problem with this, especially as it was cracking weather! We had to be canny about where we left the herd ready for the daily Hill Trip as we didn’t want them to be disturbed. Once we were into the second week of wall-to-wall sunshine the herd split forces and one group headed in one direction and the other group in the opposite direction. This still left a group of around 50 reindeer for hill trips but the other 20 had a 3-4 day ‘time out’ from visitors. Maybe they did it on purpose as it was mainly our older girls! As a result of them naturally splitting and us not wanting to miss the boat in getting pregnant cows in ready for calving we decided that we’d take them in a week earlier than we were planning to, so Kate and I did just that. We split off the pregnant cows, some of their 2024 calves and left out anything that wasn’t in calf so they could continue to free range. It gave us peace of mind knowing that anything due to give birth in a few week’s time were in and away from disturbance in the mountains. The last thing they need before giving birth is to be chased by an out-of-control dog or a drone.

The free roaming herd enjoying the hills in the good weather in early April.

Since, the free-range herd haven’t ventured too far and we catch up with them every few days for a check and a feed. In this group is Winner and Alba (hand-reared calves from 2023) so this is setting them up nicely for remaining on the free range for the whole summer. The cows in the enclosure are getting an easy feed twice a day and everyday their bellies are growing and udders starting to form. It’s exciting to watch this process.

Alba and Winnie have remained out with the free ranging herd.
Sheena checking in with some of the free ranging reindeer.
Ryvita is one of our oldest girls at nearly 16. She’s got the biggest velvet antlers out of all the females at the moment and is looking super. As she is long retired from breeding she’ll now get to spend the vast majority of her life out free ranging in the hills.

Amongst us herders we are all set with our annual calving bet picking a female reindeer who we hope won’t be last to calve, otherwise we will have to do a forfeit. Once upon a time the forfeit was to jump into a very cold loch, however, nowadays so many of us enjoy open water swimming it’s not really a challenge so now the loser has to make a cake in the autumn for when we all get together to name the calves of that year. Much more appropriate I think!

Feeding the herd now in our hill enclosure – lots of wide bellies on the hill!
The pregnant girls in the enclosure get an easy time with us now looking out for them and giving them at least two good feeds per day. Here’s Hopscotch and her almost five year old daughter Juniper eating from the same pile of food.
In the enclosure we’re regularly inspecting the size of bellies and whether there is any sign of an udder. Not sure Hopscotch is impressed!

Fiona

Posted on

A busy day on the hill

Yesterday was one of the best sorts of reindeer herding days, almost entirely spent on the hill. Me and Fiona were due to help Tilly in the middle of the day, so we set off early to find the reindeer here on Cairngorm in the morning. The reindeer certainly made us work hard that morning as they were very high on the hill at roughly 950metres elevation, meaning we set straight off into a 400m climb! It was a windy day, and we had to pause a few times on route to brace ourselves as the gusts buffeted us. We could see the reindeer for much of the walk, and once we reached the same height as them, they were just the other side of a snow-covered burn. To save having to find a human suitable crossing, we called the reindeer to us, and they expertly navigated crossing the snow.

Lapsang and Latte digging the front of their hooves into the snow.
Video of reindeer crossing the snow.
Morven and Borlotti looking majestic.

The final section of snow that they had to cross was quite steep and it was amazing to see them jab the front points of their hooves, very purposefully into the snow. They looked like four legged mountaineers and used their front points much in the same way humans use crampons. It always amazes me to see how comfortable the reindeer are in difficult conditions that require us humans to have huge amounts of equipment and training to cope with. Fiona led the reindeer down to our chosen visit spot for the day and I had the lovely job of walking behind the reindeer. This can sometimes be a challenging job requiring lots of encouragement to keep the dawdlers at the back of the group moving. Yesterday though, the reindeer were moving well so I simply had the pleasure of moving with the herd.

Walking behind the herd.
Holy Moley keeping an eye on me.
Chai keeping me company at the back of the group.

Once we had fed the herd, we headed down the hill and drove over to help Tilly. At the moment half of our herd are free ranging on the hills in the Glenlivet estate, above our second base. Tilly had already got a big group of the reindeer into the coral, and we had the task of checking their temperatures and sorting some of the reindeer into different groups. We like to do regular temperature checks as it can give us an indication that a reindeer is unwell, before they are showing any other symptoms. By doing regular temperature checks it also means they are very used to the process, don’t find it in anyway stressful. In fact, yesterday many of the reindeer stood for us to take their temperatures without anyone even holding them.

Tilly and Fiona with a group of reindeer in the corral.
A non-reindeer photo but I thought this display of lichen on one of the farm vehicles was particularly beautiful.

Once we came off the hill, we drove back to Reindeer House for our last reindeer related job of the day. Three of our cows and calves had been free-ranging in Tilly’s group for the first part of the winter, we had then brought them back to join the herd on Cairngorm and Fiona, Ruth and I walked them back to meet the herd. Thankfully the herd hadn’t moved too far, we led the girls and let their calves follow them. As we were leaving the carpark we met a group who had spent the day learning winter skills, they professed that seeing the reindeer was the highlight of their day! Well done girls!! We then walked off the hill for the final important task of the day, a cuppa tea!

Fiona and Ruth leading Feta and Christie back to the herd, I was leading Beanie, and you can see her calf, Coffee in the right of the photo.

Lotti

Book Now