Animal Farm Petting Zoo — Attraction in Town of Brookhaven

I am sorry to give this place a 2 star review, but am doing so because some of the things I saw go on there were a little questionable. I will start off with the positive - the animals, on the whole, seemed happy and sociable and their pens were clean. We did have a lot of fun getting to interact with so many adorable animals and they all seemed so friendly. I think for a place like this, the smaller 'farm' type animals (goats, sheep, pigs, horses, ducks) are probably acceptable but the lack of staff present throughout the premises, and the sale of animals makes this place seem slightly questionable.

The reason for my poor review was because during the 2+ hours I spent there, I did not see one employee overseeing interactions with these animals. Interactions between tiny, hyper children and these animals is left at the discretion of the parents - which I do not think is in the best interest of the animals. There is no information handed out describing how to handle the animals in place of staff being absent. There were 4 year old children running and grabbing goats and trying to pick them up, and freaking out when the would butt them or run off and I did not see one parent intervene. What would happen if a kid seriously injured an animal or an animal injured a child, after it had tried to give signals of not wanting to be pet?

There were signs all over admissions advertising new baby animals, one of which was a baby japanese macaque. While I am no expert on macaques it also did not seem like this petting zoo was the place for these animals. The cage held a baby, the mother and a male macaque. With groups of 20+ SCREAMING children and parents crowding around the cage consistently, the male grew agitated and started attacking the mom macaque (holding the baby) while she screamed and tried to escape him - there was no staff member anywhere to be seen to either ensure the situation didn't get out of control OR (more importantly) to ask the screaming/laughing group of 50+ parents and children (who ran over at the sounds of the macaque screaming) to back away from the cage - it REALLY seemed like the more people that crowded around the cage screaming at them, the more easily agitated or stressed they got.

My other big issue was the sale of animals. There is station where baby bunnies, guinea pigs, ducks, and other baby animals. There were a few of what looked to be high school age staff members there who it seemed like their only job was to be a salesperson to get the baby animals sold. While I was there, there was no intervention between screaming toddlers reaching into the open playpens and grabbing tiny bunnies and guinea pigs, picking them up and walking/RUNNING around. Again, what if a kid dropped a bunny? What if it bit the child and out of reflex, they dropped these tiny animals? Constant interaction with baby animals causes stress and can make them more prone to illness, which is animal care 101 and really shocked me that this was going on. I overheard one of the teenage staff members say to a parent all of the animals in that section had already been sold and they're waiting to be picked up. Why would animals that have already been sold be out in the open for anyone to be playing with? It didn't make sense and to me, shows that money welfare of their animals. It may also be a coincidence but the driveway before the entrance was advertising pigs for sale..though total speculation I sort of wouldn't be surprised if the baby pigs were sold off at a certain age.

While I am sure a lot of the staff there does truly care about the animals and i am in NO WAY suggesting they are abused or in bad conditions, there seemed to be more of an emphasis on the profit that the welfare of the animals...

Trying to find different things to do with my kiddos for the summer, I stumbled across this place on a Google search and figured it would be a nice day out with the kids at the farm. Pulling up, it was much smaller than I expected and situated kinda within a neighborhood. Paid over $100 for admission of 5 plus food for the animals which normally wouldn't be bad if the park was bigger. My kids walked the park 3 times within an hour so basically I spent $120 for 1 hour of fun. Plus make sure you have extra cash! They offer a train and pony ride but for additional cost and cash only. Also, the animals seemed VERY hungry. I went on a Saturday, so I don't know if they expected a large crowd and underfed the animals with the expectation that customers would feed the rest but the animals were all hitting their food buckets and Would snort, grunt, kick fence all looking for food. The sheep are the first animals you come across and they cleaned out all our food. Basically attacked my bucket and had to throw to them. $8 gone within 5 min. And trying to feed I to them, they are very aggressive because they were so hungry. My little one who is 3 was scared to feed them because they were so aggressive trying to eat. There was even a cow towards the back whose ribs was showing. I understand they don't want to overfeeding the animals but not feeding them at all and relying on customers only to feed them doesn't enhance the customer experience. The animals get to...

On my visit 2 weeks ago i had a few noticeable wonders and concerns. i did not see any staff besides the pony ride person within the park. Noone walking around feeding or making sure everyone had the necessary food and water. It also concerned me that there's absolutely no signs on who can and cant eat the grain and milk bottles. As a customer i had to physically put but a duck who jumped out and was wondering around looking for a way to get back in. It also concerned me that they have open unsupervised touch pens with baby ducks chicks and Guinea pigs to be seen. As all of these are concerns for a person who not only loves animals but As someone who works 6 days a week as a animal caretaker for a similar farm my main concern were the baby goats. In the "baby barn" there were 2 small (maybe week or 2 old) goats who looks so out of it and winced in pain when you touched them. They were(im guessing) just dehorned (which is weird to do at such a young age) and were healing. Not bashing the place its cute and everything just a few minor concerns from someone who deals with this on a...