Bear Den Zoo & Petting Farm — Attraction in Town of Waterford

We love the concept of the Bear Den Zoo, and up until today have had amazing experiences every time we have come. But today one of the workers ruined a fun afternoon, which is such a shame. First we came to the kitten/bunny area and were told we could not each hold a kitten (3 children) to make sure other kids could hold them. That is fair, even though we were the only people there. However the next group of kids that came over was a group of 3 girls that this lady knew, whether grandchildren or not I don’t know, and actually had us give our kitten to them so each of THOSE girls could hold one. Again Fine, we moved on to the bunnies. She showed us how to pick them up and hold them, and while we stood there holding the bunnies, my 7yr old son bent over the pen, picked a bunny up exactly how she showed him and suddenly she yelled across from the kitten box “NO NO NO!!” Which startled him and all of us, and only THEN told him and his two parents that only his parents could pick the bunny up. Even though she herself showed him how to do it, and watched him pick them up before this.

It was a strange and uncalled for Situation—not the one we paid for, and that unfortunately made my son cry and never want to return. Such a shame,. Addressing parents correctly and children makes all the difference in a persons experience. And this interaction, which all 3 of our children were affected by, was not the experience we were...

Been here three times and it's always a great time! We drive 2.5 hours to get here and mix it in with several other items on our agenda for a good day trip. The first thing you get to do when you get there is to play with baby kittens, rabbits and chicks, and you haven't even paid at that point! The prices here are very reasonable. It's only been $10 for adults for three years now. The hours have always been a bit strange. They don't open until 11 on the weekends, which has always thrown a a kink into our day trip plans.

There is always an opportunity to play with ring-tailed lemurs, which is one of the reasons we always come back. There are quite a few animals for such a small zoo and there are always new ones each year, although I'm not sure where the old ones end up. You can buy bags of food to feed several different kinds of animals (goats, lemurs, wolves, horses, cows, llamas, alpacas, more goats). There is also a picnic spot to eat your lunch. Kids seem to have a great time here and I'd highly...

This place is TERRIBLE.The conditions for the animals were super bad. We found 2 loose bunnys and reported it but nobody cared. One of the bunnys were in a cage with birds which is very unsafe. Also a hog was in the same cage as a goat. There was a black bear which is a social animal who was by itself and not with another bear . It looked very sad.And there was a lady that was a bit mean that took care of the rabbits and cats.the horse riding area forced the horses to stay in place and the horses were not clean which is very not safe for the horses and kids that are riding the horses. Its very unsafe for animals of different breeds to be in the same area/cage. The drinking water for the animals was very dirty. The prices are also very expensive. 15$ for a little bear plushie?!?! DO NOT go to this place. If you do, take a close look at the conditions of...