Start a Petting Zoo
If you're wanting to start a petting zoo, there are quite a few things you will need to do first that you may not have considered.
The purpose of this article is to give you a full picture of the work involved in starting and maintaining a petting zoo as well as tips on attracting customers.
Read on to find out start a petting zoo.
Instructions
1. Prepare yourself! Before you start setting up the land and picking out the animals, you must prepare yourself both mentally and financially. I strongly recommend buying insurance as with a business such as a petting zoo, you will be bound to have a law suit come up every once in a while. If a child is hurt by an animal or on your property, you can be in a world of hurt if you don't have some good insurance first. You may want to go out of state or province to find cheaper rates, if you are on a tight budget.
Speaking of law suits, be sure to keep any sick or injured animals out of sight from public as many animal rights activists will try to take pictures to have your business shut down.
2. Prepare the land. You can't have a petting zoo in the middle of a neighborhood. You're going to want at LEAST ten acres of land before you start a petting zoo.
On this ten acres, you'll need a nice sized parking lot for your visitors. It doesn't have to be paved if you are on a tight budget. Gravel will do just fine. You'll also need plenty of bathrooms, if you plan on having a very big crowd. The most affordable way to go here would be to have porta-potties, but this means you're going to need to hire someone to take care of the maintenance on those, unless you don't mind doing it yourself.
You'll need a shaded area if your summers are hot, so people don't want to leave in a hurry from heat exhaustion or sun burn.
Additionally you'll want two barns. One to keep the larger animals and a seperate one to keep any sick or injured animals (remember the animal rights activists?).
Be sure to put up plenty of pens to house your wide variety of animals.
3. Prepare the animals! In order to attract customers, you will need a wider variety of animals, both common and rare. The animals you have on display need to be both friendly and gentle with small children. If you have any mean animals that may pose a threat, get rid of them IMMEDIATELY.
If you are breeding and raising your own animals, remember that they turn out to be the friendliest if they are bottle fed as babies. Also if you have males, ensure the are neutered to help maintain their aggression.
When purchasing your animal collection, only buy from well known sellers with good reputations. I personally would recommend staying away from auctions to find your animals.
Rabits, horses, guinnea pigs and even hedgehogs are a must for a successful petting zoo. Be sure to have a wide variety of both large and small animals to appeal to a variety of people.
