Zoo Veldhoven — Attraction in Veldhoven

If I were reviewing from the point of view of my children I would say great. They could feed the birds and see several species of birds and some mammals too. It was a nice afternoon for them through their child’s eyes. I cannot however make excuses for what I as an adult saw. The animal enclosures are not nice. There is a difference between worn/in need of updating and neglected/unclean and these were the latter.

The enclosures are small and several animals all in together. It is a sorry sight to see these beautiful animals clambering at the dirty metal fences for scraps of food given by children.

These animals are treated like glorified pets and yet I wonder how people can feed these animals close up and ignore the state of them. Ragged and bald. Some have sores in various parts. I saw one bird had sore skin/something protruding from its anus that looked anything than comfortable. The Website says they take in birds that have often suffered neglect and years of stress. So of course you may expect to see some animals who are less than healthy. But surely these birds would be being brought back to health in a hygienic and caring environment? Not from what I saw.

The website encourages you to bring in your own fruit for the birds with a short list of what is not good to give them. I don’t trust that everyone turning up would adhere to these rules (based on the amount of times I’ve seen families at the Warande feeding animals right next to a sign that says “Don’t feed the animals”) and there certainly wasn’t any staff around to monitor this.

The most heartbreaking was the bird of prey enclosures. These majestic creatures cramped into enclosures smaller than my bedroom. Dirty and certainly not smelling the best. So sad. The glass in the tortoise enclosure was mossy and green and filthy. The facilities were dirty too. Of course in a place that specialises in birds you cannot escape poop in places you wouldn’t normally see but no one seems bothered about cleaning this and so almost all places for sitting or playing you must share with poo. Some children next to me were even planting dandelions into some poo as a game (not the zoos fault for the children I know but they were only playing with what was available).

Every page of the website says they have been making improvements since 2013, even with the pandemic affecting profit surely 9 years is plenty of time to bring things up to standard? Lack of funding could obviously be an issue but I have seen charities with less do better. I agree with another review on here that paying to go is just funding the mistreatment of these poor animals. They will be on my mind for...

This place lies to visitors saying the birds of prey get only given male chicks because male chicks have something in them that humans can't eat (which is so not true!), most of the water birds are given BREAD?! Bread is very very bad for birds! The parrots are plucking themselves out of boredom, that's super unhealthy. The state of most parrots is not very humane. I worked here one day as a "proof day" to become an intern, I got accepted but then I send them 3 e-mails for a document that needed to be signed and they didn't reply, not even after months! I had to find a new internship last minute. No pleasure to work at. Owner doesn't care about the animals and just wants the interns for free labor. DO NOT GET AN...

This is an amazing zoo. They have so much animals, especially birds. They are mostly rescued birds stemming from people who have discarded them or injured birds. Besides birds they have a lot of farm animals like donkeys, goats and horses but they also have more exotic ones likes zebra's. It's really fun to come here with kids but I would also really recommend this as a date! The people who work here are very helpful and passionate. The animals have more space than I have seen in other zoo's so that makes me happy. It's also really fun to buy some nuts at the reception for 1 euro and feed the birds throughout the park! Thanks for the lovely experience, we have been here twice now and will definetly come back...