Rose Bridge Farm — Attraction in Upper Dublin Township

Our family celebrated our daughter’s 4th birthday with this hands-on farm interaction. However, our guide seemed much more comfortable interacting with the animals than the many children that were there; even my own children seemed uncomfortable and disappointed in the experience because of the way she interacted with everyone.

She repeatedly cautioned the children to bottle-feed the goats at a 45° angle because previous guests had killed a goat (!) for raising the bottle angle too high, which was more information than my children were comfortable hearing, and then she didn’t even explain what that angle meant to the large group of young children. Further, when I did feed them at a 45° angle she cautioned me to lower it at least halfway further, saying she would take the bottle away if we didn’t follow her instructions.

She chastised another family for looking into a clear barn window that was directly adjacent to the main petting/feeding area where there were camels being held, citing that one of them was sick and needed seclusion; however, the camels were visibly standing in the window and looking at the family, which drew them over in the first place. The effect was that the family walked away saying they seemingly felt guilty for breaking some unspecified rule about looking at the camels through an unblocked window.

The tour took us up to a cow enclosure, where the guide announced that she would take us in to see them. The kids all got excited, and then she looked at the crowd of mostly 3-7 year olds and asked how old everybody was; when she found out their ages she said only children 12 and older could go in to see them and several children cried. If that is their policy then that’s their policy, but she should have had some awareness that these children were NOWHERE close to 12 years old.

If nothing else, she needed to have some sensitivity to the idea that young children at a please-touch animal sanctuary are excited about these opportunities and she should have stated the age restriction from the beginning instead of leading the kids on and only then stating that they weren’t welcome inside the enclosure.

She finished the tour by talking about the horse that they had there, which got my kids re-interested… only to disappoint them all over again by saying that it’s a shame he wouldn’t be out today.

She followed that up with: “we’ll end the tour in our gift shop,” which felt shameless, like we were supposed to follow her there as part of the tour instead of leaving it up to us as an option. The kids at least got excited by the sleeping cat in the middle of the shop, which they naturally assumed they could gently pet like all the other animals, except they were chastised by the only other employee I saw there, saying that they weren’t allowed to pet the cat.

There was a young girl on our tour today who nervously screamed with excitement anytime a goat walked right up to her, and the female guide reacted in real time, telling her explicitly that she was not allowed to yell. I understand from an animal-wellness perspective that the animals would likely prefer a calm environment, but the woman did not address the issue with the family standing with her, instead directing the admonishment at the child, who probably didn’t understand most of what was happening around her in the first place.

The animals at Rose Bridge Farm are fantastic, even including Mabel, the horned goat who head-butted me probably a dozen times. However, the people who provide the guest interactions at Rose Bridge Fam act like they’ve never spoken to a child or given proactive instructions in their life, and that’s half of their job. My kids left with a few good memories of petting and feeding the animals and plenty of bad memories of all the things that it seemed like they were allowed to do but were specifically told that they weren’t allowed to do AFTER they got their hopes up. Bring in a new group of tour guides and we would consider coming back.

Extremely disappointing...

Can't wait to go back! My daughters (17 & 10) love petting zoos and animals (and so do I!) so I was looking for something to take it up a notch. Rose Bridge doesn't do much marketing so it took me a while to find out about it, but I'm sure glad I saw it here on Yelp! They are a great farm and animal rescue and doing great stuff, and I'd normally be happy to donate money to the cause, but being able to go play with the animals at the same time is just icing on the cake! We did the weekend hour long visit on a Saturday. Got there about a half hour early and got to start playing with the animals before our session started (advise you do the same). Then we spent about 30 minutes playing with the baby goats, baby calf, hog, chickens, and goose, and saw the chickens, camels, peacocks, and more. And when I say we played with the goats, I mean we could pick them up, snuggle them, hug them like baby puppies, etc. And Oliver the 3 month old calf was just like a lap dog too, he'd walk around and nuzzle us and look for attention and pets (he loves chin rubs!). There's somewhat of a rotation of animals so your experience may differ a little but my understanding is they always have some baby goats as the main attraction, including "Pepe", the cute little black baby goat the size of a puppy when we were there... We then got to bottle-feed them which was a blast, then went to feed the sheep which was hilarious as well. The camels were busy that day and the horse was ill, so we didn't get to feed them but it was fine.

Loved it and can't wait...

I went to Rose Bridge Farm for a festival day with a friend and we had the most amazing time. When we walked on the property we were immediately greeted by their friendly staff. We were early so we explored a little bit outside of the barn… we met the barn cat in the shop and some animals outside.

The staff told us it was OK to go into the animal’s area and that’s when the magic really began. We saw a peacock, roosters, pigs, goats, lambs and camels! Everywhere we turned we met a new animal and we couldn’t believe we were only 30 minutes away from home.

For the festival we did 2 crafts- we created a candle and a pot for a succulent. The inside kitchen/bathroom/living room area is completely stunning. We were told during their glamping sessions you have full access to this area… and we will absolutely be coming back for this ASAP.

We spoke with the lovely manager Mel while we were hanging with the hosts and she told us backstories on the farm and the animals and also really interesting goat facts… she also taught us how to properly hold a goat.

Bonnie let us help her bottle feed cows which was incredible.

We had the most amazing day at Rose Bridge Farm and we can’t wait to go back many times. This is definitely the most amazing thing I’ve found on Google. Thank you so much to the entire staff for making our Saturday one...