Down on the farm: what is your favorite zoo farm exhibit and what makes it cool?

[DavidBrown]

It's Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S. as I write this which means that many people are paying higher-than-average attention to turkeys, potatoes, pumpkins, etc. and their associated food products.

Many zoos (most perhaps?) have some kind of farm exhibit. These exhibits are potentially very important as zoos are one of the main places that people in our increasingly urbanized world may experience farm animals and farm life.

Where are the outstanding zoo farm experiences and what makes them so?

Are there any zoos out there that have regular cow milking, sheep shearing, and other shows like that?

The Los Angeles Zoo has a contact yard where kids can brush goats.

Hopefully zoo farms will decrease incidents like the one my aunt had at a major zoo where she heard a parent explain to her child how we get cotton from sheep.

 

[Arizona Docent]

The problem with all of them is they perpetuate the myth of the happy family farm instead of showing the brutal reality of corporate factory farming. If any zoo ever had the guts to take this on, then you would have an exhibit with real educational value!

 

[snowleopard]

Farms are as common as meerkats in American zoos, with practically every single major zoo having one somewhere on the grounds. After many road trips the farm zones have at times blurred together, except for the world-class Sedgwick County Zoo and its trio of really cool farms. It is certainly one of the biggest, most diverse, and all-around best farm setups that I've ever seen within the confines of a zoo.

An excerpt from my 2010 review:

Children’s Farms – It is not unusual to see a typical farmyard complex in an American zoo, as many kids in that country never have the opportunity to physically visit a real farm. I’ve seen innumerable farms at various zoos, but none as impressive as the one at Sedgwick County. There is a large American farm, but also African and Asian farms. It is great to see such diversity, as well as to see Ankole cattle and dromedaries near African huts. In the Asian farm there were water buffalo, angora goats, Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, yaks and Karakul sheep. Kids could easily spend hours travelling between the 3 farms and enjoying the domesticated animals instead of the wild ones at the rest of the zoo.

 

[PAT]

The problem with all of them is they perpetuate the myth of the happy family farm instead of showing the brutal reality of corporate factory farming. If any zoo ever had the guts to take this on, then you would have an exhibit with real educational value!

Is this a particularly American thing? I'm not familiar with farms around the rest of the world but I do have a lot of experience with them in general because I grew up on a large dairy farm in country Victoria. I think down here the most common type of farm is the family owned one. Whether it's a traditional sheep or cattle farm closer to the coast or the huge* properties that run beef cattle in the outback. Pigs and chickens are farmed indoors though but more and more people are looking for free range alternatives.


*I mean really massive. I remember a few years ago there was a farm in the Northern Territory that went up for sale that was bigger than Belgium.

 

[DavidBrown]

Are farm exhibits common in European and Asian zoos?

 

[The Vegan]

The problem with all of them is they perpetuate the myth of the happy family farm instead of showing the brutal reality of corporate factory farming. If any zoo ever had the guts to take this on, then you would have an exhibit with real educational value!

Apparently, the Queens Zoo Domestic Animal exhibit does just that...but to what extent, I don't know. Their website states "Learn how taking good care of domestic animals helps imperiled wild animals survive, too." A friend who has actually visited the exhibit confirmed this for me. Other Zoos, such as Roger Williams Park Zoo, promote organic farming rather than attacking factory farming. More zoos should take on this subject, for factory farming truly does destroy the environment.

 

[tschandler71]

The "evil" of factory farming is just another piece of trumped up bs by watermelon (green on the outside red on the inside) enviro-socialists.

The American farmer busts his ass for you any me every day. The world would starve without the outstandingly productive yields or the indirect technology developed and embraced by the American farmer.

 

[DavidBrown]

The "evil" of factory farming is just another piece of trumped up bs by watermelon (green on the outside red on the inside) enviro-socialists.

The American farmer busts his ass for you any me every day. The world would starve without the outstandingly productive yields or the indirect technology developed and embraced by the American farmer.

Can you guys please take your political debate to another thread or discussion board? I really want to know people's opinions about zoo farms - not start a political insult thread. Thanks.

 

[tschandler71]

im responding to other people. People need to lay off the insults of the agriculture industry in this country. They gripe you know until they realize they get plenty to eat.

 

[The Vegan]

I certainly don't share your opinions, tschandler71. I personally raise much of mine food organically and don't see how factory farming, chemical fertilizers, etc. would improve my current circumstances, or for that matter, anyone else's. Sorry for getting off track here-but discussing the purposes and goals of domestic animal exhibits is vital to judging them.

 

[arcticwolf]

The Buffalo zoo's farm exhibit is fairly nice. It is themed around a historic farm and has animals like cows, sheep, and chickens. Even though it was made for kids, it was still nice and educational. I just wish that they redid other exhibits before creating the farm.

 

[blospz]

The Buffalo Zoo's farm is unique with its local history aspect. However, there is not much to it. I would agree other exhibits should have been updated first. But the the location of the new entrance being where the old children's zoo was located, I think there was a purpose about the order of exhibits.

 

[dean]

We have a local authority run farm near here, Marsh Farm - I think has a web site,- but in general zoo's in the UK have children's zoo Colchester's is called 'familiar friends' rather than a farm, it may have ponies, cows, goats to pet or feed, some native some exotic some rare breeds, but it doesn't relate to farming at all.

My partners sister has a rare breed farm on Buckinghamshire and they take school parties around to show them how animals are kept and raised. Apparently the kids pile off the bus holding their noses for the smell, and go home as high as kites having stroked a lamb or seen day old chicks.

Some stately homes have farms attached that are open not true working farms as such but a collection of animals from the era of the farm buildings etc. I visited one Wimpole hall in Cambridgeshire, it was soon after some had children had become infected (I think one died) with some nasty bug picked up from not washing petting the animals. Though the infection didn't originate at Wimpole, all the fields had been double fenced to stop any contact with the livestock.

 

[siamang27]

Sedgwick County's is my favorite of the ones I've seen because there is a much wider variety of animals kept, and the different types of farms make it more original. Most that I've seen are basically the same thing so this one helps to break it up a little with the African and Asian farms.