Fort Chiswell Animal Park — Attraction in Wytheville

In April my husband and I decided to take a gamble and visited, for the first time, the Fort Chiswell animal park to celebrate our anniversary. We were at first leery about going "off the beaten path" to the park, but once we arrived, we discovered a literal animal paradise! Both of us have visited numerous zoos, petting farms, and have been on bus and tram safaris in various parts of the country, especially when our children were younger. Although the visitors, including us, "ooh"-ed and "aah"-ed over seeing the animals at these venues, the animals, many of which often looked like "inmates behind bars," acted as if they were very depressed and/or scared to death. However, this was far from being the case at the Fort Chiswell Park. I remember telling my husband while we were at the park that the animals there seemed to be so free, so happy, and so much in peace while we observed them all in their very beautiful, natural habitat. By the way these precious animals allowed us to interact with them, it was obvious that they had received exceptional care and nurturing from trusted caretakers. I was so surprised at how extremely knowledgeable our tour guide Heidi, one of the park's curators, was when I fired off questions related to the animals' needs and origins. We especially enjoyed being able to safely and without any fear, feed many of the animals at close range with the special feed Heidi provided for us to give them and we have the pictures to prove it! As one who loves cooking and eating plant-based foods, I was intrigued and pleasantly surprised when Heidi shared that the feed was custom-made with very healthful ingredients. I experienced so much enjoyment and tranquility at the park, I really hated to leave at closing time and even asked about job opportunities because I felt a yearning to spend countless hours at the park. However, I realized that it may be best for those who are young in both mind AND body to fill the openings! Because of my memorable experience, I want and plan to be a frequent visitor to the park to enjoy more of the blessings God has for us on this side of heaven, right here in...

We found this spot while passing through from Atlanta, GA to Pittsburgh, PA.

There were four of us, three adults and my twenty month old grandson. He was a little leery of some of the animals probably due to sheer size but he fed the animals and even by hand to the llamas and alpacas.

Most of the animals have space to roam freely. There is a safe “maternity ward” to protect new babies from coyotes.

When asked about shearing off the animals, our tour guide, Madison, told us that a specialist comes from New York then the fur is given to another in New York to provide for children in need. I found that to be awesome and makes me want to support them when I can.

Some of these animals are rescues, such as the camel, Puff, who came from a place that starved him to keep his humps down. How awful but thankfully he is out of that awful circumstance.

Our tour guide was very knowledgeable on the animals and able to easily answer our questions as well as to give us many fun animal facts.

They have a great bus tour as well as a petting zoo where it was easier for my grandson to feed and reach the animals. The animals do come right up to the bus as you are going through and Puff puts his head right in the windows and will take food from your lap if he can. lol he’s such a sweetheart though.

We were happy to find this little hidden treasure on our road trip home and would happily return if we pass through again.

Thank you for saving these animals who can live...

We stopped at [Ft.] Fort Chiswell Animal Park 6/6/15 11:45am when trying to get around huge highway traffic jam (plus, it was close enough to lunch time/stretch our legs time) during our roadtrip to the eastern shore for a summer vacation. The Park was very enjoyable and housed a surprising variety of animals for a "mini zoo" seemingly in the middle of nowhere up on a hilltop.

There appeared to be a bus Safari/Tour of some of the grounds but we did not go on that. In addition to an outdoor picnic area, they have a gift shop/concession/restroom building, including an attached covered picnic area (complete with coin-operated, child-sized rides: mini-carousel, macaw, and train).

In addition to riding the rides (of course), my three-year-old son loved feeding whole peanuts (sold there) to the Alpaca and the Fallow Deer over & through the fences of their respective enclosures.

When we visited, the Park also housed (these are what I saw/took pictures of; they may care for more animals there than I list): Wallabies Macaws Tortoise Capuchin Monkey East African Crowned Crane Mouflon

When we visited: Adults $12 Children (don't know what age is the cutoff) $10 Bag (standard brown paper "lunch bag") full of whole peanuts to feed the certain animals $3.50

The Fort Chiswell Animal Park is definitely worth a stop and worth the money to support this small...