And we're off! Calving 2024 is underway, with this very cute wee lad born early this morning. 😍😍😍

As usual, we don't reveal which cows have calved for the time being, so that all our adopters find out at the same time in their newsletter in June. Patience required for now!

Jelly enjoying some spring sunshine. ☀

Jelly was born in 2020, when all our calves were named after beans, seeds and peas - he is a Jelly Bean! 😍

Tick tock, tick tock... ⏰

No calves to report just yet but there are some incredibly wide bellies on the hill, like this lovely lass! All our pregnant cows are now in the mountain enclosure ready for calving and the excitement is building for our favourite time of year!

It's the last Friday of the April so it's time for our monthly photo blog! 📸 Click the link to see a snapshot of what's been going on at the Reindeer Centre the month.

cairngormreindeer.co.uk/2024/04/26/pho…

FEATURED REINDEER: BOND
Bond is a 'cockalorum' - a wonderful word we came across from pre-18th century, meaning 'a little man with a high opinion of himself'!

Orphaned at a very young age, Bond survived by stealing milk from other mums.
Want to adopt him? cairngormreindeer.co.uk/adopt/

The handsome Poirot on this morning's Farm Tour. We even had blue skies and sunshine ☀️

Holy Moley relaxing after this morning's Hill Trip 🤩

Lovely old girls Silk, Ibex, and Ladybird on a rather dreich day. All three have now long retired from breeding and will spend the rest of the spring, summer and beyond out free roaming in the mountains. What a life! 😍

The lovely Beret dodging the April showers this week 😍

We have just three final farm tours!
We may well offer more in the future, but probably only as an option in the spring. Hill Trips at Cairngorm run all year round though, so you can get your reindeer fix at any point!
Tickets: cairngormreindeer.co.uk/wild-farm-tour…

Ever wondered how to grind the gears of a reindeer herder? In this weeks blog Hen tells us about all the reindeer herder pet peeves.

cairngormreindeer.co.uk/2024/04/19/rei…

Here are Dr Seuss, Rocket and Jester all looking super after a winter out free roaming in the hills 👌

Morven (left) has cast her antlers in the last few days, whereas her mum Spy (right) cast hers earlier in the winter and so has a head start on Morven! They both tend to grow big antlers so we hope they'll have a great spring & summer ahead of them and find lots of good grazing!

Gotta get those legs comfy! Here's Lule (pronounced 'lool-eh') getting herself settled for forty winks 💤 in the heather earlier today! She is 11 months old now, and Borlotti's first calf.

Our entire herd consists of roughly 150 reindeer, usually split into at least three different groups with many of them roaming free in the mountains. In this weeks blog Fiona remembers a rather snowy winters day in which she saw every member of the herd.

cairngormreindeer.co.uk/2024/04/12/the…

HELP A HERDER! We're looking for photos of people and reindeer together...

Any particularly nice pics that you are happy for us to potentially use for publicity at some point? Please feel free to fire them over to us on email - [email protected]

📸 IES Abroad

The lovely Hobnob has just started to grow this years antlers. They start off as small velvety bumps. The velvet has lots of blood vessels in it which feed the growing bone. By the end of August her antlers will be fully grown and the velvet will peel away leaving boney antlers.

Here is old lass Sika, soon to be 16! Sika has always been a shy girl so she tends to keep in the background around our visitors. But she's often towards the front of the herd each morning, helping us move the reindeer to a suitable spot for our Hill Trips ☀

Morven, one of our most impressive females, enjoying a cold frosty morning recently. Morven always grows a beautiful set of antlers and these ones, grown in 2023, are no exception. ❄

Many people are curious about how we get the herd into our hill enclosure when they've been out free roaming. The answer is quite simple - we show them a feed bag, make some calls which they associate with being fed, and walk them through a gate! Here is Marple leading the way 🤩