Petting Zoo for my sons preschool

[Luvmyzoocrew]

Ok I am a big fan of educating kids on animals, i love it when kids get to be involved with animals. BUT my sons school had a petting zoo and i think i must rant.

1st- UGH!!!!!!!! Where the heck and these kids parents?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! You dont poke and hit the animals?!?!?! :grumpy: Is it wrong of me, being a grown up and all, that i wanted to push some of the little kids down in the dirty duck water :shock: . Parents who dont disipline thier kids on proper behaviour drives me INSANE.

2nd- I dont think the conditions of some of the animals was ok.
There was this GORGEOUS giant lop there and oh my god if i could have put him in my pocket and taken him home i would have he was so cute!!!!!!!. But my rant on him was his one eye i swear looked like it had puss on it, my mom said that it was just wet she thinks, then his bottom OMG was brown and dirty, looking, and not like "oh it just happened" but like he either was having diarehha or urine scald. Lets put it this way it didnt look like what a buns bottom is suppose to look like.

Now as far as farm animals i no NOTHING about what they are suppose to look like, as far as ideal body look, but thier was a baby cow there (who was absolutely beautiful and one day i will own a light brown cow,lol) who i thought was a little boney? but again i dont know what they are suppose to look like and if they do look boney, and a duck that had scabs on the back of his head where he , i guess, had feathers pulled.

Then of course you had food in the water containers because there was food there for you too feed the animals and the "cute" little kids where just dumping it on the animals and it was going in the water. Over all i wasnt impressed and think that some of the animlas didnt look well and should have been there representing thier place.

But like i said i seen that one lop that i want so bad!!!!!!!!! If i had room for another rabbit i would get him, he was huge and so cute

 

[NorthernAutumn]

I'm all for pushing kids in the duck water... their parents too!
I find myself in the pet stores instructing children to stop hitting the glass on the fish tanks.
Some parents are ridiculously ignorant or careless about animals. I don't really understand why...
You could always write a letter of complaint about the animals' conditions to the Petting Zoo farm... You can be confident on the rabbit's state anyway. Maybe they figure no one notices?

 

[pla725]

I agree that if you going to use animals for educational purposes you need to keep them clean. They also need to monitor the interaction of the public with the animals. The most important thing is the welfare of the animal. I would find who is in charge and let them know your concerns.

I was at the Philadelphia Zoo this past weekend for their Party for the Planet Event. Our rescue had a table. We weren't allowed to have any of our rabbits there but they did have two of their rabbits out. We also had Penny the Lionhead on loan. We asked for her to taken back after an hour or so because of the heat. The other two were not so lucky. I asked the zoo staff check on one of the rabbits because I felt that he was having problems with the 90 plus heat. The other was okay but still... They did check and gave the rabbit an ice pack. What bothered me most was that the zoo gave us a temperature guideline and they didn't even follow there own guidelines. Anyway I did email them my concerns.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

I have to keep a tight rein on Larry--he will get really confrontational with parents that don't watch what their children are doing. He explains it this way--IT's their job, not the village, Hillary! If you see conditions like you explained, call the ASPCA and register a complaint--they are pretty good. As to the other, Parents and their progeny, unfortunately, there is no license requirement for breeding--there are way too many that don't take any role in their childrens' lives past conception.

 

[pla725]

The zoo did send me a response. Pretty much the response I expected but I said my peace. BTWit wasn't a generic canned response.