Trowbridge Creek Zoo — Attraction in Minnesota

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this establishment as someone with professional animal welfare experience. My little family visited on the 4th of July, and it was very quiet (which is nice). I will list some of the pro's and cons below.

Pros: the domestic livestock were very friendly, attention seeking, and well socialized. None of the animals looked like they were "starved" of anything but attention (lol). The camel at the beginning looked very healthy to me, and seemed to genuinely enjoy the interactions at the front! You can tell they are all very well socialized.

Cons: First and foremost, over half of the exhibits were overcrowded. Way to many animals in one spot. There were roughly 10(+/-) NA porcupines in a smaller, open topped enclosure, with many of them lacking space to stay away from each other. The AC porcupines were huddled in a very small dog like fenced in area, but I am hoping they have an exhibit out of public viewing they go to at night? Just to name a few examples. Secondly, I noticed many animals with small, open injuries and limps (the crane was especially disheartening to see with only 2 legs and struggling to stay standing). I am unsure if some had arthritis or not, but many of the animals were supposedly young. The injuries did not look fresh, and I wish I got pictures of this. Unfortunately I was chasing a toddler. You could feed almost all of the animals, but unfortunately this caused a lot of battles at the feeding tubes with animals getting aggressive over sharing food. Considering food, there were lots of incredibly dirty feeding stations. I 100% understand animals get dirty, or knock things over, but when we got to the black bears there was what looked like ground beef on the ground absolutely plastered to the dirt floor. It looked very old, and one of the cubs was struggling to chew on a side of the lump. The exhibits were not sturdy enough for said animals as many have escaped at some point with the massive amounts of open steal like netting placed in areas of dig outs. Prairie dogs run the back grounds and have made copious amounts of holes in and around the fences of multiple animal exhibits. They also had a Zonkey. Not sure why or how they got it, but breeding animals that would never meet naturally for procreation is highly frowned upon in the welfare and accreditation community.

Overall, I was highly unsure of what the point of this zoo is. Is it education? Entertainment? Conservation? Profit or personal gains? It is family run as a for profit Zoo, but with so many animals come high responsibility to showcase proper health and care. I think the idea behind it is a neat one, but execution is lacking. The animals need better care (medically and husbandry wise) and might be solvable if a downsize were to take place. Less animals, more...

My boyfriend and I visited in the afternoon, we were the only ones there and a small girl about 12 or 13 was accepting admission fees. We bought two feed cups and as we made our way thru the zoo the animals acted like they hadn’t ate or if they are only fed when people come to the zoo with feed cups. I know how animals react to food but I just had a bad gut feeling and there was no feed or hay to be seen in the enclosures. Most of the animals like the two brown bears have no place to go to hide from humans. The enclosures are made out of wood and chicken wire, and are extremely small for the animals they are putting in them. A coyote and a jackal in the same 8x8 cage, two brown bears inside the same size cage. Not one of the enclosures had water in them and if they had anything it was green liquid that hadn’t been changed in a while. The fox looked Mal nourished, missing patches of fur and seemed lethargic. They had 25% of the fox enclosures ground covered with chicken wire because they had tried to dig out. The biggest concern I had was that the hooves one of the animals (I cannot remember the species) were grown out like skis and it seemed to really bother him to walk. We didn’t seeone adult the whole 2 hours we walked around. We even purchased additional cups of food to make sure these animals had a little more to eat. This was a wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing. When you get past the excitement of the animals engaging with you and look around, You realize these animals are being abused and have poor living conditions. I will not be posting the pictures I have because I am going to the...

This is a zero star zoo. I'm glad my son at 5 years of age has fun, but these animals have dry food and water buckets everywhere. The enclosure for half of these animals are way too small. It is a sad zoo unfortunately. It seems like the only food these animals get is the grain they give you at the ticket stand. Not a single employee walking thru making sure the animals are taken cared of. The alligators where so dry and the water they had was absolutely disgusting. Everything we gave a animal some food they all ran up and pushed each other put the way just to get a couple pieces of corn. That is so sad to see. Luke said before, "a wolf in sheep clothing" even if it is a family owned business, atleast make it look like you care for these animals. I have video and picture proof of the sadness the way they live. The foxes and lemers and everything small, they hid in tiny shelters and looked so malnourished and sad. They would live truly better in the minnesota wild where they don't even belong. I would NOT be surprised if one of the animals killed someone, they deserve it. Don't be surprised when you get the animal police trying to visit. You guys are a truly sad zoo. The homeless get better food than these guy. I am so sad hearted I don't even know what to say..they claim they have a food shelter for each animal, that has to be a lie. What do you do? Take the black bears out personally and bring them to shelter? That's one of the biggest lies I've ever heard. There is no option to post pictures because they know it's true. I have proof that this so called "family owned" business...