Back to Eden Ranch — Attraction in Gilroy

READ IN FULL BEFORE BOOKING!!

I am a avid animal lover, experienced on farms and frequent many different petting zoos.

This space charges extra to enter the animal enclosures, you have to pay $80 adult $70 a child for two hours. Which is what a “petting” zoo is, feeding the animals with proximity to being able to fully engage with them. This space keeps them in their exposures and you feed through the gate.

We paid $70 to visit this farm for an hour; which I do feel is pretty expensive being I regularly visit petting zoos. The gates are a bit challenging for children to “pet” the animals and it’s not as interactive as a “petting” zoo should be in my opinion.

Price point high: Being that this is pretty expensive only having one hour to experience and feed the animals is not enough time. Also, she kept “offering” lemonade to my children then said it was $7 a cup. The feed was $10.

Examples of other petting zoos; Happy Hollow is $18 a child with a full range of animals, petting zoo with more variety and a real zoo for children to experience whereas this space is $15 a child and $30 an adult. And only an hour time limit.

She has two large trampolines; one has a stepping stool to enter the other doesn’t and my 5 year old scraped her back getting down. Also, she told my daughters to get off the trampolines because that’s for “after” we feed the animals and the price doesn’t include jumping until they are done feeding which I felt was not only rude and overstepping was absolutely ridiculous. They are huge trampolines not sure what she is expecting there.

Not a large variety of animals. There are only llamas, goats and bunnies to “pet” and they only after half of a carrot cut into pieces which is what the animals loves the most.

We noticed some of the bunnies were very lethargic and even had legions in the nose and eye.

After and hours and half, which we had to wait bc she had double booked and kept wanting us to leave the “petting” zoo area to go walk to the cows and I communicated, we booked an hour also and we wanted to continue to feed the llamas and goats. Her site says it’s self roaming to so walk where you like and feed the animals you choose. However she has friends coming and was requesting we give them their space and I let her know we are paying customers and we’re not interested in staying with the cows for half of our time.

When it came to petting and meeting the cows we had to wait for an additional amount of time which is why she extended our time slightly. However; she came and tried to rush my children as we were finishing up our last few cups of feed and hovered over us for about ten minutes for us to finish up and leave the farm.

Over all; this was not a positive experience. It’s unprofessional, the trampolines are slightly unsafe and there is definitely an inflation of prices for minimal interaction and overselling of her lemonade was distasteful and it just felt money hungry over the experience of being there for...

Five of the things that we appreciated the most about our recent visit to the Back-to-Eden Ranch:

The cats who rushed out to greet us when we parked inside the gate were amazingly friendly. I never knew that cats could be so sociable and outgoing. At the end of our visit, as we were about to get into our car to leave, one of them rushed out to socialize with us—meowing and purring up a storm—as if to say, "Please don't go!" For me, that alone made the visit worthwhile.

Jasmine and Andrew take a very down-to-earth and non-commercial approach to their visitors, giving us the feeling that they were friends or family rather than a business.

The animals all appear very clean and well-cared for, which is heartening to witness.

The portions of feed/"snacks" for the animals are extremely generous (and affordable), so don't feel compelled to bring your own edibles.

There was a variety of animals to which we were exposed, including alpacas, chickens, cows, ducks, geese, goats and rabbits.

Note: What we encountered in our experience might be called a "feeding zoo." It was certainly not a "petting zoo" (as billed on the website), as the animals could only be fed through wire mesh or across tall fences. They could not be pet or held as they were in photos that appear on the website. For this reason, it would probably be best not to expect that your experience will be different, unless you're assured otherwise in advance by phone. (Reviewing the website and our emailed receipt, as far as I can tell, we did purchase the "petting zoo" experience, though this is not what we got. As an expression of appreciation and support for the owners and their venture, we are nonetheless awarding this review a full five stars.)

Bonus tip: Drive very slowly as you approach, as it's easy to miss the gated entrance unless you're...

Had a great farm experience on this ranch. I’m a city girl from England, and it was my first time doing something like this. Shaylie, our tour guide, gave us little baskets to pick some roses from a well-tended garden - I soon discovered what they were for! Then she introduced the cute baby goats, showed us how to feed them and even helped me take videos of the kids whilst eating the roses from my hands and when walking an older goat – how great is that! We moved onto meeting the two cows, Joy and Sayang – I got to feed, brush and hug a cow for the first time in my life! Then we met the rabbits, and baby bunnies too – I was taught how to hold the rabbit properly and cuddle it gently whilst it was feeding. Moving on to the ducks, and geese, and chickens, and some other fowl – yes, guinea fowl! I’m not that keen on fowl, so I politely declined when I was offered a photoshoot with ‘Good boy’, the star of this fowl kingdom. Finally, we visited the alpacas, and I must say this was the best! And Shaylie did instruct us to speak softly whilst with these gentle creatures. I’ll admit I’m a little apprehensive with larger animals, so it was a wonderful experience to have the alpaca eat from my bare hand! I drew the line at being kissed by an alpaca – although the lady next to me had no such reservations and did actually get a smacker on her cheek. We were offered a welcome glass of ice cold lemonade at the end of our tour by the friendly owner of the farm, Jasmine, with the opportunity to purchase a variety of eggs and some fruit. Now that I’m home, I’m writing this to thank you, Back to Eden folk and in particular, Jasmine (my namesake), for this memorable farm experience of my holiday...