You know something has gone very right when you accidentally end up being a reindeer herder for the summer. I met herders Mel and Chris on the Isle of Rum, and about two months later I found myself moving into Reindeer House. I couldn’t have predicted becoming a herder, and it has exceeded all of my expectations!
I arrived in Glenmore at the start of May, right in the thick of calving season. The first month was an amazing blur where every day was different, calves were being born left right and centre, and the sun was shining every day. By June I felt fully settled in to my new role, the calves were now free ranging in the mountains, and I was able to work on perfecting the art of guiding Hill Trips! July brought on some very impressive sets of antlers, looking back at photos from May, I can barely recognise any of the boys! It has been a process of constantly learning and relearning who is who because the reindeer seem to shape shift on a weekly basis. Now that August is upon us, I’m starting to get sad realising my first summer here at Cairngorm is nearly over!
Here’s some photos from this summer of herding:
Giving Helsinki’s calf a lift into the nurseryJelly welcoming me to the paddocks on my first dayTexel’s calf seeing if any milk will come out of my fingerDruid working his magic…trying to persuade me to feed himDruid’s magic clearly workedA poorly Jimmy on his morning walk. Don’t worry, he recovered well!Rainbow on the free rangeSoggy but happy faces after taking the last group of cows and calves out to the free rangeSolstice camp out with TireeEmily and Alex busy behind the scenes building the new exhibitionA scruffy Yukon in the foreground looking bored while I waffle on to visitors about how cool the reindeer are.
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!
At this time of year the entire herd is free ranging over two sites. Here on Cairngorm we have most of our adult females and calves and we keep an eye on them usually every second day. In the winter we also lease more winter grazing at our second site where all the adult males are, plus a few cows and some of our bigger male calves with their mums. Tilly monitors the goings on there every couple of days, but we go and give her a helping hand whenever she needs. It’s always a joy to catch up with the reindeer there, especially when the weather is this good! Andi went over to help check all the temperatures last weekend and she took some photos which I thought I’d stick in a blog! Otherwise our social media is mostly made up of the cows at this time of year… so here’s a good mix of the reindeer Tilly has this winter!
Jelly looking great and enjoying a peacful winter!Frost will be 7 years old in the spring! He’s a very reliable ‘Christmas reindeer’ and was out and about at events on weekends throughout November and December. He’s now having a well-earned rest and enjoying free roaming in the hills.Kernel was a breeding bull during last year’s rut where we would certainly not want to be this close to him! But now his testosterone levels have dropped he’s back to his usual freindly self. Phew!Magnum with the white patchy face had his first Christmas season as an adult last year – he’s also now enoying a well-deserved break. Limpopo next to him is one of the darkest reindeer in the herd and is a yearling bull.Mr Whippy standing out like a sore thumb when there’s no snow!Adzuki with his head down grazing and Christie looking into the camera, beautiful as ever. Turtle and her nephew Elbe enjoying the easy grazing.The size of Sherlock’s new antlers are ridiculous already! Usually the males don’t grow antlers until closer to the spring but Sherlock is in such good condition he started growing them in December!What a beautiful day to be out in the hills! Haricot closest to the camera!2 year old Iskrem having recently cast is antlers. Closest to the camera is Earl Grey. He’s one of three male calves at our second site along with their mums. They’re the 3 biggest calves of the year and are already starting to think they’re big bulls!
I thought I’d write a wee blog to thank everyone who has come to volunteer for us this year. However, if you’ve volunteered in a previous year, please don’t be remotely offended if you’ve not found your name in a blog like this – it’s literally only because I have a few spare minutes and Ruth (blog master) is sitting next to me… so probably time I wrote a blog once again. Gotta keep her sweet…
Volunteering this year has had a slightly different feel to it, as the Paddocks normally take up a considerable amount of a volunteer’s time each day; poo-picking, sweeping, opening and closing them each day, chatting to visitors out there… But this year that aspect has vanished completely, so volunteers have been able to be a bit more ‘relaxed’ during their week, sometimes not starting until gone 10am. Unheard of in the past! Although sadly this luxury was not afforded to us full-time herders… Volunteers this year have therefore spent the majority of their time helping us on the Hill Trips, usually twice a day, with rather less time spent pottering about down at the Centre.
Caitlin joined us for a week in August. Here she is with Hemp and Limpopo in the hill enclosure.
Normally we take volunteers each year from May to October, but long-term regular volunteer Emm is afforded special status, often coming outwith these months. She managed three stints this year, and you’ll find many blogs over the years from her on our website, the most recent (at time of writing) being here. We love having Emm here to volunteer!
Emm with her adopted reindeer Mo, braving the weather at a very cold and wet local Christmas event a few years back.Emm in September this year with Cowboy and Mivvi.
I’ve just peered at the wall calendar here in the office and counted 26 other volunteers who gave up a week of their time to come and help us this year – as ever from all walks of life and ranging in age from 18 to late 60s (I’m guessing – apologies if I’ve offended and congratulations if I’ve flattered!). We love this range of people from all walks of life – it’s much more interesting for us to have a stream of totally different people here every week than it would be to get people all of like mind.
Of those 26 people 12 were returnees, which I guess means we must be doing something right! There’s an element of apprehension for us on a Monday morning when a ‘new’ volunteer is due to arrive, not knowing what to expect of someone – the scant info we gather in the application form only goes so far to give us an idea of what someone will be like. This year everyone, new or returnee, has been absolutely wonderful though, so we never needed to worry.
Stephanie returned for a week in June of this year, the third year on the trot! Stephanie is pictured doing a very important volunteer job – offering the slightly leaner youngsters some extra food at the end of a Hill Trip. Yukon is delighted!
So huge thanks must go to all 26 lovely volunteers, in order only of when they visited: Victoria, Jayne (who wrote a lovely blog you can read here – thanks Jayne!), Anne, Kerry, Rachel C, Marcus, Stephanie, Anna, Wendy, Aleksandra, Becca, Rachel S, Jocelyn, Nora, Caitlin, Katie, Callum, Helen, Christine, Karen, Sharon, Colin, Sophie, Lisa, Emily and Brenda. You are all amazing! A special shout-out to Nora, who at 18 was our youngest volunteer but also the furthest travelled – having persuaded family to come on holiday to Scotland from Washington D.C. in the States, so she could spend a week of that time with us!
Rachel S joined us in July for a second time. This is herder Kate with Dr Seuss and Ärta (left) and Rachel with Ob and Iskrem (right) helping out with harness training.One of the main responsibilities of a volunteer is helping out on Hill Trips, carrying food, helping dish out the hand feed, and talking to our visitors. This is Alex who helped out in July for a week doing a sterling job of not letting Jelly in to the white bag!
Another person to mention is 14 year old Maisie, who lives locally and is the daughter of family friends of the Smiths. This year Maisie has been joining us on some days in the school holidays and has been wonderful, super chatty and sociable for such a young lass, and always keen to get involved and help out. She’s also very fit, being into lots of outdoor sports, so puts me to shame anytime I’m on the hill with her!
Borlotti saying hello to the lovely Maisie!
And the final person to mention who’s a constant help throughout the year is Carol. Carol started out as an adopter, living relatively locally, and has progressed to being a regular volunteer, helping on the Hill Trips most weekends. She has finely honed her hand-feeding talk over the years and now has the groups listening with bated breath!
For anyone reading this that is thinking that a week’s reindeer herding sounds like a fit for them, why not come and join us?! We start booking in each season’s volunteers each January, so drop us an email then if you’re interested and we’ll send you an application form. We can’t provide accommodation unfortunately, but there is both a campsite and a youth hostel within a couple of hundred metres, not to mention a huge amount of other accommodation elsewhere in the area.
But finally, I will finish on a sad note. Our wonderful long term volunteer Paul, who visited for a fortnight twice a year for around 25 years, initially with wife Pat – sadly passed away in his mid-eighties this summer. Paul was a retired joiner and so built all sorts of things here over the years, mixed all the feed for the reindeer and generally made everything wobbly and creaky into something strong and stable. He could talk the hind legs off a donkey, keeping us constantly entertained with his stories, and did his best to get us all drunk in the evening at least once during each stay! We will miss him hugely.
August has been a busy and fun month. The first half of the month was very busy with visitors and sold out Hill Trips. Without the Paddocks and Exhibition this year it feels like the Hill Trips have been even busier than usual. Sometimes we even put a bonus additional Hill Trip on so as not to disappoint too many folk! The reindeer were not complaining about another opportunity to hand-feed!
But as Scottish schools went back the second half of the month got slightly quieter with visitors and we’ve been having lots of free range action which I love. Generally we start to see the free ranging females more as they come down in altitude as the weather gets cooler. Towards the end of the month we also start bringing in the mums and their calves back into the enclosure. They spend June through to August/early September out roaming the hills learning how to be little wild reindeer and enjoying all the best grazing, but when the autumn rolls around it’s time for them to learn what a feed bag is and in time, how to walk on a halter etc. The following photos are a small snapshot of what’s been occurring this month…
1st of August: Sheena leading down Mivvi with Cairngorm mountain in the background.2nd of August: Frost coming over to say hello!5th of August: Kernel and Jelly, both 4 years old, leading the herd on a very dreich Hill Trip.5th of August: Mivvi looking so smart in his short, dark summer coat.6th of August: Harness training in the sun! 7th of August: Sherlock looking MEGA!7th of August: The most identifiable nose on the hill?? Dr Seuss saying hello!8th of August; Amy being mobbed by a bunch of boys (and girl Alba is bottom left) wanting their breakfast!9th of August: A free ranging mission with Cameron. Moving a group of VERY old girls, Ibex, Sambar, Gazelle, Sika and Pavlova with a collective age of 79!12th of August: Handsome Akubra. 13th of August: Haricot on a beautiful breezy morning.14th of August: Wafer coming over to say hi! He looks great this year, with very pretty antlers.14th of August: Winnie and Alba looking super! Both were hand-reared last year.15th of August: A late afternoon excursion from the office to find and move some free ranging reindeer. This is the lovely Emmental who was certainly not shy!16th of August: Cows and calves are back in the enclosure! This is Christie, her male calf, and Solero in the middle.16th of August: Brie’s calf is exceptionally cute! But I could say that about all of them…19th of August: Marple and her calf behind.20th of August: Jenga spending a short while in the enclosure for a wee health check after a summer out free ranging. 20th of August: Sunflower and calf!24th of August: Ryvita aged 15 and looking fantastic!!24th of August (a): Vienna and calf being retrieved from the free range. I enjoyed a lovely evening walk with them back to the hill enclosure.24th of August (b): Vienna and calf home! Back in the enclosure after a summer out in the hills.
Anyone who has come to visit us will know that we have very strict clothing and footwear requirements. On a fair-weather day, this may sometimes seem slight overkill but when the conditions change, or something goes wrong requiring us to stay on the hill longer than usual, the extra layers are absolutely necessary.
A wild day feeding the reindeer (Getty images).
One such occasion happened in December. We had almost come to the end of a hill trip when one of our visitors approached me to ask if I could help her support her wife who had slipped and possibly sprained her ankle. At first they had hoped that between the three of us, we would be able to walk off the hill. When I reached her, it became quickly apparent that the pain was too great for her to walk of the hill even with us taking her weight, making it a very easy decision that we would call mountain rescue. The week before I had done my first aid training and our casualty’s wife was a doctor so hopefully, she was in good hands. While Ben got on the phone, I fetched our group shelter and Isla brought some layers to keep everybody warm. The reindeer, having not seen a group shelter before were very interested in the sudden appearance of a giant orange ‘bag of food’ and Ben and I had to chase them away to avoid any further injury.
Druid, Dr Seuss and Jelly were very interested in the group shelter.
We were very lucky, and the mountain rescue team were with us within an hour and a half. As they arrived there were fits of laughter from inside the group shelter as Ben was telling both the women not to worry, that we had pre-paid for the rescue by getting our kit off for a naked calendar the previous year, raising over four and a half grand for the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team. Mountain Rescue teams are made up of volunteers, when a call comes in, they are all alerted and have to leave their jobs/ whatever else they may have been up to come out. Once the team has assembled, they then have to drive from the base and then walk out to find the casualty, all of this can take a good few hours. On this occasion they had already been alerted for another rescue so the first people to respond had gone to the other casualty and then the next people had come straight to us. The mountain rescue team were absolutely fantastic, they splinted her ankle, with some much-appreciated pain relief, and then lifted her onto a stretcher, ready to walk off the hill.
The whole time this was happening, we could hear a helicopter flying a little way south of where we were. It became apparent that the helicopter was meant for the original casualty who had been climbing in the Northern Corries but they were unable to land due to the weather. So as not to waste the flight, and to get our lovely visitor off the hill and to hospital as soon as possible, the helicopter came to us instead.
The herd walking down past us to the afternoon Hill Trip.Helicopter landing in the hill enclosure.
By this point we’d been on the hill so long that the afternoon Hill Trip had arrived and was gathered a bit further down the hill. The reindeer have regularly seen helicopters in the distance, but we were unsure if one landing this close to the reindeer would spook them causing a rather abrupt end to the Hill Trip. On the contrary, the reindeer barely batted an eyelid, the visitors were all pretty interested though!
Helicopter with our afternoon Hill Trip visitors and reindeer behind.
The woman with the broken ankle was lifted into the helicopter and as they flew off her wife told us ‘Once she’s out of hospital and her ankle is fixed, she’s going to absolutely love this, she loves helicopters’. The rest of us walked back down off the hill.
Helicopter flying away.
Accidents such as these are very rare, in fact at my first aid course the previous week I had smugly told the instructor that I hadn’t had to use any first aid since the previous course 3 years earlier. I clearly spoke too soon. In this case, our visitor slipped despite having the correct footwear, she was just very unlucky. All four of us ended up staying on the hill for a total of 4 hours, for the last 2 we weren’t moving. For me it was a very good reminder of why we have to be so strict with the footwear and clothing that our visitors wear, had our casualty not had enough layers, the situation could have become more serious very quickly.
Ruth and Andi all dressed up for a winter reindeer feed.
Our adult ‘Christmas reindeer’ (castrated males) are trained to harness at around 3 or 4 years old, so they can take part in a few events and parades in November and December each year, bringing in part of the income that then supports the herd for the rest of the year. About 25 of our males are trained so this enables them to take their turn at events, most of which are at weekends, and no-one is overworked at Christmas time (except, perhaps, us…)! Between weekends all the reindeer are back on the mountainside getting some good grazing and some downtime.
What happens during a training session? This photo blog will hopefully give you a taster of what we get up to during afternoons in October and early November here in Glenmore in preparation for Christmas tour.
These photos have all been collated over the past few days over several training sessions involving different reindeer and reindeer herders.
Step 1: Ready the sleigh! Here Lisette and Sheena are unloading the sleigh and trace. We also get the harness all laid out, ready to put straight on.Step 2 (a): Retrieve your reindeer! We bring down reindeer from the hill enclosure and they spend a short spell in the Paddocks whilst we undertake sleigh training. At least two of the adults will be highly experienced sleigh-pullers who show the new recruits how it’s done. Here is a Christmas team (four adults and two calves) chilling in the Paddocks just before a training session.Step 2 (b): Catching the slightly shyer reindeer in order to put halters on often involves a bucket of lichen! Thankfully their greed usually wins them over very quickly.Step 3: Reindeer are caught, herders are attached to their ropes and off we go… Athens is the owner of the very wide antlers closest to the camera.Step 4: Take them for a wee walk and jog to get rid of any extra energy they may have before putting their harness on.Step 5 (a): Harness gets put on outside the shop. The “trainer” is the most experienced reindeer who stands next to the less experienced reindeer. In this photo 8-year-old Scolty is teaching 4-year-old Athens that all is calm and there’s nothing to worry about whilst Hen puts on their harness. Step 5 (b): With Scolty’s harness on, it’s now Athens’s turn.Step 5 (c): Reindeer like to be together in herds so whilst Scolty and Athens are getting their harness on the other boys and calves are right behind, patiently waiting for their turn.Step 5 (d): After getting used to wearing a halter and going for wee walks around Glenmore, we can put harness on the calves too. Having their heads in a bucket of tasty lichen definitely helps the process! This is 6-month-old Yangtze having harness on for the very first time – completely unfazed!Step 6: Once all reindeer are wearing their harness we go for another short walk to give the reindeer the opportunity to get used to their bells and how everything feels. Alba is the calf at the back wearing her harness for the second time.Step 7: Attach the two sleigh-pulling reindeer to the ‘trace’. Here Frost is closest to the camera. The trace then gets attached to the sleigh.Step 8: The four ‘back reindeer’ now get tied to the sleigh. Here Sheena is at the back with Morse and Jelly (both of whom have cast their antlers already). The calves are sandwiched between the big boys to make them feel safe.Step 9 (a): All attached and ready to go! But Clouseau is asleep already!Step 9 (b): Off we go! Here we have Clouseau pulling closest to camera, and Frost at the back.Step 9 (b): The view from behind – lots of lovely bottoms! Along with the two herders who walk at the front and back of the sleigh, one person walks ahead and one person walks behind in hi-vis slowing down any traffic.Step 10: Having a pause. Practicing patience is equally as important as practicing walking. Here Lupin is closest to the camera and is doing a super job for his 4th ever go at pulling the sleigh.Step 11: Add weight to the sleigh! If we have a fifth person helping us out, we sometimes get them to sit in the sleigh to make sure the front reindeer are actually pulling. On a real event they will have Father Christmas in the sleigh who can weigh quite a lot!Step 12: All done for Lupin and Clouseau – time to get unattached from the trace. At this point, we usually switch the back boys to the front so all four adults can have a go at being the sleigh pullers.Step 13: Once all the reindeer have had their go and we’re back at the Centre then the harness can come off, and the boys do their “Christmas shake”! Step 14: Back to the Paddocks they go! Well done boys and herders! The adults usually have around three or four goes of this over several days and then head back to the hills. Such wonderful animals to work with!
I love September! The reindeer look super, we’re busy with free ranging reindeer, we name the calves and we start learning their individual personalities, plus the rut kicks off. Having said that, I planned a two week holiday in one of my favourite months – must remember not to do that again! So there is a big gap in the photos for this month’s blog, but I’ve made up for it by just sharing more from the same day.
Just a reminder – we don’t reveal the names of the calves online until our adopters receive their newsletter next month.
2nd of September- Sambar (in the background) and Okapi. Both now 15 years old and looking great for their age. This was taken on one of my reindeer retrieval missions.3rd of September – Brie and her wee daughter. Back in the enclosure and both looking good after a summer free ranging. 4th of September -Mangetout looking beautiful on a lovely autumnal afternoon. Her daughter and her new sister (belonging to mum Dante) are the calves behind her.19th of September (a) – After a TWO week holiday, I’m back to work and the first job is to split the reindeer for the rut. Exciting times! Here is Fiona putting some cows out on Silver Mount, an area within the hill enclosure.19th of September (b) – Step two is to add the bull! Fiona and I took Sherlock for a walk to the enclosure. Here he is off to find his girls – a man on a mission!19th of September (c) – Our other breeding bull is three year old Jelly. He looks a bit less sure about the situation compared to Sherlock but he quickly got the idea.20th of September – Holy Moley and her calf behind. Holy Moley is delighted to be back in the enclosure after the summer in the hills. Here she is on the hunt for more hand feed.21st of September – Sherlock with some of his girls – Bordeaux, Pip and Jenga.22nd of September – Trying to get a nice pic of Mushy and Jenga but Bordeaux wants in on the action. Or maybe it’s the white bag under my arm.22nd of September – Christmas Reindeer, Frost and Adzuki, looking handsome in the late afternoon sunshine.26th of September – Emmental is the first to the feed bag on today’s Hill Trip.26th of September – Girls out free ranging! These are some of our single ladies, either too young to breed or retired from breeding. From L to R: Vanilla, Sorbet, Diamond, Sambar, Lolly, Solero and Suidhe (sticking her tongue out!)26th of September – Catching up with this old lady on the free range! Diamond is now 11 years old and looking super. She is stripping the velvet off her antlers.
During the summer months it’s a good time of year to work on our reindeer handling for both reindeer and herders. With a fair few new faces this summer with seasonal staff picking up a few weeks here and there it’s not just good practice for the reindeer but really important that us herders know the best way to approach, put on halters, putting on harness and generally knowing how to act and move around the reindeer in close proximity.
Andi, Hen and Hannah on a walk with a bunch of harnessed reindeer – some very experienced, others more new to this morning routine!
First of all we pick which reindeer will go through the ropes that morning then we split them off into a separate enclosure at their morning feed and bring them up to our shed on the hill. This is where we do all our handling, whether it’s taking temperatures, tending to unwell reindeer or doing a bit training where the reindeer have a halter on and wear a bit of harness. From our shed we can walk out into a quiet enclosure so they get a feel for wearing the harness while walking. Within the group of chosen reindeer there is always an ‘old boy’ who has done lots of training before so already knows the drill and therefore gives off the right vibes. We stand any newbies next to him so they have a calming influence. As well as being the role model to younger reindeer our older trained reindeer are good ones for new staff to learn how to put harness on as they don’t fuss or move around making it a lot easier to explain and learn. Some of our older boys who are trained are: Aztec, Dr Seuss, Poirot, Sherlock, Frost, Clouseau and Athens. We then train anything who is 1, 2 or 3 years old next to them. The 2 and 3 year old have of course done this for the past few years so it tends to be the yearlings who are a bit more twitchy doing it for their first summer. Of course as 5-6 month old calves they went out and about at Christmas so its not completely new to them.
Cameron and happily, completely unfazed trainees – Jelly and Jester.Andi with Cicero and Scoop – training no matter the weather!Harry, Amy and Fiona with very scruffy reindeer – June 2022.
Once we put some harness on we walk them out into another enclosure to get used to it. Our two hand reared calves Winnie and Alba sometime join us for this little excursion each morning so they can get a bit of extra hill grazing. Being the size of a medium dog sometimes the young trainee reindeer forget that the calves are actually reindeer and decide to unnecessarily have a brief panic, before realising how silly they are worrying about a little reindeer calf… or two. It’s quite funny watching them work it out. The old boys are pretty savvy to the calves and just ignore them.
Working closely and being able to handle our reindeer is really important for them and us. As many of you know we run a Christmas tour through November and December so any extra handling prepares our reindeer for some of that work they do. We also handle our reindeer should they need any treatment, vaccines or antibiotics and the more used to this they are the less stressful the situation for both animal and human. Some take to it quicker than others, like us they all have their individual personalities and characters. We change our handling sometimes depending which reindeer it is you’re working with. It’s really important we know our reindeer so if there is one ‘off colour’ then it’s picked up quickly and dealt with.
Here are some photos of us training our reindeer in the summer and also in the autumn time when we are getting ready for our Christmas tour.
Lisette at the front of the sleigh with trainee Poirot in October 2022. Sheena at the back with Athens – also new to the job.A training display during our Adopter’s Weekend – October 2022. Fiona, harnessing Dr Seuss and Frost whilst Tilly holds them.Andi at the front of the sleigh with Svalbard and Druid. All three have done it lots before but a good refresher for everyone. October 2022.Ben and Poirot at the front. Poirot’s first time in trace but acting like he’s done it for years!Scolty and Frost – October 2021 – having a practice in Glenmore. Dr Seuss at the back. Mr Whippy wearing harness for the first time as a 5 month old calf – getting used to the feeling at a very young age.
I remember when we found Gazelle and Adzuki just after he was born how relaxed they both were. At the time Gazelle was twelve years old and had had many calves before so she was completely comfortable for us to hang out with her and her new-born calf. (Provided that we had brought her some food, which of course we had)!
New-born Adzuki.Fiona, Gazelle and Adzuki.
Adzuki is now one of the biggest of his age group. Adzuki was always fairly shy so we have spent quite a lot of time, and bribery, getting him used to us. It helps that he is from a greedy family! Adzuki grew a wonderful set of antlers as a two year old and after a winter free ranging he’s currently back in our enclosure and has grown a whole new set once again – even bigger!
Adzuki growing a beautiful set of antlers as a 2-year-old bull – summer 2022.Adzuki – summer 2023.
Haricot
Haricot was Ryvita’s last calf, and when he was born he was really wee. In fact as we waved the cows and calves off onto the free-range for the summer, I wasn’t totally convinced that we’d see him again. But we did, in fact by the end of the summer he looked totally great and was just as fat as any of the other calves. Ryvita however was looking a wee bit underweight, potentially due to having done such a fantastic job of raising Haricot, so we gave her some extra food all autumn. And of course, if Ryvita got extra food, so did Haricot! As a result, by Christmas, he was like a little barrel!!
A near miss for Haricot (if you don’t see it at first then look closer)!Haricot as a new born.Haricot in the snow as a calf with Lupin and Holy Moley coming up behind.
Haricot’s extra food that first autumn certainly stood him in good stead and he’s now a very handsome young reindeer. Here he is below with half brother Adzuki, you can certainly see the family resemblance!
Haricot and Adzuki. – summer 2022.Winter Haricot.Haricot – summer 2023.
Butter
Now Butter came as a bit of surprise. His mum, Gloriana, had never calved (despite running with a bull each year) until the age of 8 when Butter was born! We found Butter on a super soggy day and he had big floppy ears. Butter spent all summer free-ranging and we didn’t see him much and then one day at the end of the summer Gloriana came running into the enclosure with no calf. She was grunting away and still had an udder full of milk suggesting that she’d only recently lost Butter, so we sent her back out to search for him. We didn’t see either of them for quite a while and then one morning, Gloriana showed up with Butter in tow. He was looking fairly skinny so we decided to name him Butter, after a butter bean, in the hope that he would grow to be ‘fat as butter’!!
New born Butter on a very soggy day!
Sure enough, fast forward almost three years and Butter is doing very well. He also got lots of preferential feeding that first autumn and as a result has done just as well as the rest of his age group! He is incredibly tame and can be pretty cheeky sometimes but it’s hard not to be fond of that white nose!
Butter looking smart in his summer coat.Butter showing us he hasn’t changed all that much – summer 2022.Butter free-ranging this past winter.Butter – summer 2023.
Lupin
Lupin was Marple’s first calf and when he was born he was really small; we wondered if maybe he was a little bit premature. But Marple did a great job, she took motherhood all into her stride and after the first few wobbly days he was charging around the enclosure after her! When they were free-ranging that summer and we headed up to find them Lupin would always come marching over to see us! He was one of the tamest and boldest free-ranging calves that I have seen!
Tiny wee Lupin.
Lupin is now a very handsome young reindeer. He’s not as tall as some of the others but he’s in great condition and grew a fantastic set of antlers both last year and this year. He’s not lost his confidence either, he’s very bold with both humans and reindeer, in fact I think last autumn he got fairly full of himself and was strutting around as if he was one of the big breeding bulls! Lupin had a wee sister born last year who we named Viennetta, and another (as yet unnamed) sister this year. Viennetta could not be more different from him as a calf. She’s very pale with a white nose and was one of the largest calves of last year!
Lupin in the hill enclosure last summer – 2022.Lupin – summer 2023.
Cicero
I had the great delight of finding Cicero’s mum, Brie, when she was mid-way through calving. I found a spot far enough away to not bother her and watched the whole process through binoculars. When I found her the calf’s front legs were already out and it didn’t take long for her to calve completely. It was totally amazing then to watch the first 20 minutes or so of Cicero’s life. First he was licked dry, then he had his first milk and then fairly soon afterward he took his first steps!
Cicero taking his first steps.
As Cicero has grown up he has certainly taken more after his dad (Houdini) then his mum (Brie). Brie is the smallest of all our fully grown reindeer and Cicero is the tallest of all the reindeer his age, I think he over took her in height by about a year old.
Cicero on a dreich day – summer 2022.Cicero – summer 2023.
Jelly
When Jelly was a couple of days old we noticed that he wasn’t suckling properly, after closer examination of Jenga, his mum, we realised that she had passed all of her afterbirth. Both the passing of her placenta and the production of milk are associated with the hormone oxytocin which is released as the reindeer is calving. After chatting to our vet we ended up giving Jenga a dose of oxytocin and kept a close eye on them for a couple of days to make sure he was suckling properly. After a couple of days they were happy and he was getting plenty of milk from mum, by the end of the summer he was in great form, one of the biggest calves.
Jenga and Jelly suckling.New born Jelly finding his feet.
Not much as changed since then, Jelly is still one of the biggest of the 2020 bulls, definitely with the biggest neck of all of them – what a chunk! Jelly can be a little dopey at times and this reminds me of that tiny wee calf wobbling about to get milk.
Jelly being a dude – summer 2022.Jelly – summer 2023.
Hemp
When Hemp was wee he was a beautiful slate grey colour with a white nose, much like his dad, Spartan. Whilst Spartan’s characteristics were showing up in many of the calves that year, note the white noses of Adzuki, Haricot, Borlotti and Chickpea, the family resemblance is strongest in Hemp.
Hemp leading the way.
Hemp has grown up into a lovely friendly young reindeer which is no surprise as he comes from a very tame family, on both his mum and his dad’s side. He’s incredibly greedy (which comes from his mother) and can be a little stubborn at times (which comes from his father).
