Frank is our male camel. He is about 10 years old now and is our main riding camel. He is extremely friendly and loves a good scratch behind the ears. He is very obedient when being led by the right person as he has been known to push his luck. Since being on the farm he has been trained to ride and is our main camel for trekking. Frank is the biggest of the camels reaching over 2 meters high to the bottom of his humps and still growing so there are few leaves he can’t reach.
Jemima
Jemima is a very beautiful and elegant camel with very long eye lashes. She is about 12 years old making her the oldest of our herd. Jemima is very experienced and had been trained previous to us owning her. She has proved to a very good breading camel now the mother of three other camels on our herd. (Camomile, Hilda and Hector.) Jemima has very white wool and which along with the other camels has been collected to be spun to make yarn.
Myrtle
Myrtle is one of he most gentle of the group, and has been broken in to ride by us. She has given birth to Archibald which was her first calf. Myrtle is an extremely caring mother but is too kind for her own good as she let jasmine pouch her milk to the detriment of Archie. Providing milk for two other camels took its toll on myrtle and caused her to use a lot of her fat reserves and so has had floppy humps for the much of the summer. Now Archie is about 18 months old, he has been weaned enabling myrtle to put on weight her humps are straightening up again. She is hopefully due to have another baby in the spring 2008.
Jasmine
Jasmine is a pretty greedy fat camel who looks after herself very well. Consequently due to her keeping herself well she is very pretty and always seems to be first in front of the camera. She is quite cheeky and loves to play with us and the other camels. Jasmine is quite big now and is about 5 years old. So far Jasmine has had a very easy life and not had to do any work at all but this is hopefully about to change as we are in the process of breaking her in to be ridden for treks. We are fairly sure that Jasmine is pregnant and so is hopefully due to have a calf in the spring 2008.
Camomile
Camomile is also 5 years old, has a very white face and is very pretty. She has a great sense of humour and was our “white” camel before the arrival of Lilly. Camomile is the daughter of Jemima and the mother of Doris though she doesn’t show it as she rejected Doris from birth. She is very a very strong camel and as been ridden on treks for 2 years now. Camomile can be a bit naughty and loves to make people jump by sneaking up and surprising them. She is always one of the first to notice if there is food on the way and will push others out the way to get to it. However she is very calm and well behaved when being ridden. We hope next time she has a baby she will be more mature and take to it better.
Maggie
Maggie was the youngest of the original heard and used to be quite wary of us. Due to this she always had a really messy coat so acquired the nickname ‘Scraggy Maggie’.
Now she is nearly 5 years old but still quite small for her age. She is nearly always first to come over for attention and loves to pucker up her droopy lips but she has n unfortunate tendency if dribbling smell green spit out of he mouth. Apart from this minor set back in appearance she looks after herself very well and has a lot of potential for riding in the future.
