The Truth About Petting Zoos

It's exactly 10:14 AM on a Tuesday and I'm currently wedged between a rusty chain-link fence and a toddler who's vibrating with the kind of feral energy that usually precedes a trip to urgent care. My four-year-old, Leo, is violently shaking the enclosure gate, screaming "HORSIE! HORSIE!" at an animal that's very much not a horse. I'm holding a half-empty iced oat milk latte that's aggressively sweating down my wrist and pooling onto my favorite jeans, which already have a mysterious crusty stain on the knee from breakfast.

I look at the animal. It has giant ears. It's very small. It's, I realize with a sudden jolt of deep maternal inadequacy, a baby donkey.

And I realize I know literally nothing about farm animals.

Before I had kids, I had this whole completely delusional fantasy about what motherhood would look like. I thought we would be that family. You know the one. The parents who wear coordinating linen and take their perfectly behaved, angelic children to the local farm sanctuary on weekends to commune with nature. I honestly believed that exposing my kids to animals would be this calm, grounding experience where they would gently stroke a sheep while the afternoon sun filtered beautifully through the barn dust. I thought I'd be kneeling next to them, whispering educational facts about agriculture.

Instead, reality is just me frantically trying to pry Leo's grubby little fingers out of the goat food dispenser while my seven-year-old, Maya, loudly complains that the entire outdoors smells like poop. The idyllic farm visit I imagined is actually just a high-stakes obstacle course of animal droppings, aggressive roosters, and my own spiraling anxiety about bacteria.

Trying to figure out what a baby donkey is called while actively sweating

So Leo is screaming about the "horsie" and I'm trying to use this as a teachable moment because I read somewhere that ages two to four are critical for animal learning and vocabulary building. So I pull out my phone with my free hand—the one not currently covered in oat milk—and I frantically google what's a baby donkey called.

Because I realized I had no idea. A puppy? No. A calf? That's a cow. A kid? That's a goat, which I only know because Dave, my husband, made a really terrible dad joke about it three years ago and brings it up every time we see a goat.

And let me tell you, the terminology is aggressively complicated. According to the internet, which I'm skimming while Leo tries to stick his head through the fence slats, a baby donkey is called a foal. But wait, if it's a boy, it's a colt, and if it's a girl, it's a filly. And the mom is called a jenny, and the dad is a jack. Like, why? Why does a single farm animal need five different names based on age and gender? I can barely remember the names of the other moms at preschool drop-off. I'm running on four hours of sleep and leftover fish sticks. I can't be expected to look at a small gray animal and instantly catalog its gender to accurately call it a colt.

Anyway, the point is, I crouched down—getting my jacket dangerously close to a pile of mysterious brown pellets—and said, "Actually buddy, that's a foal!" And Leo just looked at me like I was completely deranged, yelled "HORSIE!" louder, and tried to feed it a crumpled up receipt he found in my pocket.

The vitamin drops tangent because my brain is broken

The funniest part of my frantic fence-side googling was that when I typed "baby d" into my phone, my search history immediately auto-filled to "baby d drops."

It gave me this massive, visceral flashback to when Leo was a newborn. My pediatrician, Dr. Evans, who's lovely but always looks at me like I might spontaneously combust, told me I had to give Leo vitamin D drops every single day because I was breastfeeding. I remember standing in my kitchen at 3 AM, sobbing because I couldn't remember if I had given him his "baby d" that morning, staring at the tiny glass bottle like it was a live grenade. I used to google "forgot baby d drops will my baby get rickets" at least twice a week.

It's just wild how the things we panic about change. Three years ago, I was convinced I was failing him because I forgot a vitamin drop. Today, I'm convinced I'm failing him because I don't know the difference between a jenny and a jack. Motherhood is basically just swapping one highly specific, completely exhausting anxiety for another.

Please don't trust the petting zoo hand sanitizer

Let's talk about the real reason I hate petting zoos, though. The germs.

I guess I used to think that petting zoos were relatively sanitary? I don't know why. Dave always says I overreact to germs and that kids need to eat dirt to build their immune systems, but Dave is also the man who once let Leo lick a public handrail at the mall, so his opinion is completely invalid.

Dr. Evans told me at Leo's last checkup that farm animals, especially the cute little ones like our friend the baby donkey, can carry zoonotic diseases like E. coli and Salmonella. Apparently, kids under five are basically walking targets for severe complications because their immune systems are still figuring out how the world works. And the worst part? Dr. Evans said that hand sanitizer—the stuff I usually buy by the gallon and slather on my kids like sunscreen—doesn't actually kill everything at the farm.

I guess certain farm-borne spores and dirt just laugh at purell?

So instead of trying to calmly direct them to the exit and hoping they don't touch their faces and praying for the best, you basically just have to throw them over your shoulder and march to the nearest actual bathroom with running water to scrub them with real soap like you're prepping for surgery.

Oh, and apparently if you seriously own a donkey and the mother has low milk supply from eating toxic grass, you need to call a vet for a domperidone prescription instead of trying home remedies, but since we live in a townhouse and the closest thing we've to livestock is a very fat squirrel on our patio, I literally couldn't care less about this fact.

The chewing phase at the farm

The absolute worst part of taking a toddler to a farm is that if they're teething, they view the entire world as one giant chew toy. During this specific donkey encounter, Leo was cutting his two-year molars and was completely unhinged.

He was trying to gnaw on the wooden fence, the stroller straps, and my shoulder. Thank god I had rummaged through my bag that morning and found our Panda Teether Silicone Baby Bamboo Chew Toy. I'm not exaggerating when I say this tiny silicone panda is my favorite thing I own. I love it more than some members of my extended family.

I had clipped it to his shirt, which was a lifesaver because about ten minutes after the baby donkey incident, he dropped it directly into a pile of dirt. Because it's just one solid piece of food-grade silicone with no weird hollow parts where mold can hide, I was able to just run to the farm's utility sink, scrub it with soap, and hand it right back to him. The textured bumps on the back genuinely seemed to distract him from the fact that I wouldn't let him crawl into the goat pen.

His outfit, however, didn't survive the trip. He was wearing the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit Sleeveless Infant Onesie from Kianao. And like, it's a perfectly fine bodysuit. It's super soft, the organic cotton didn't irritate his eczema, and the snaps didn't pop open when he threw a tantrum. But I'm an absolute idiot and put him in the white one. White. To a farm. Within twelve seconds of arriving, it was covered in mud, animal feed dust, and what I'm praying was just chocolate ice cream from the snack stand. It's a great layer, but do yourself a favor and buy the darker colors if your kid is a chaotic force of nature.

By the time we finally left, my diaper bag was a disaster zone. If you ever want to know what a defeated mom's survival kit looks like, it consists of:

Three empty juice boxes that leaked sticky apple juice onto my wallet.
A plastic bag containing the ruined white bodysuit, sealed like biohazardous waste.
Half a crushed granola bar that Leo handed me and demanded I "keep safe."
The silicone panda teether, coated in lint.
Absolutely zero hand sanitizer because I rage-pumped the entire bottle empty trying to clean the stroller wheels.

If you're looking to create a safe, clean space for your kid that doesn't involve E. coli or angry roosters, you can explore some beautiful organic nursery essentials to keep them entertained indoors.

Can we go back to the stationary potato phase?

Driving home, with both kids asleep in the back and my iced coffee completely melted into a sad watery mess, I felt this weird wave of nostalgia for the newborn days.

Yeah, I was exhausted back then, and yes, I cried over vitamin D drops, but at least babies stay where you put them. I miss the days when Maya was tiny and I could just lay her under her Wooden Baby Gym in our living room. I'd drink hot coffee—actual hot coffee!—while she just stared peacefully at the little hanging wooden elephant. There was no mud. There were no zoonotic diseases. The biggest risk was her spitting up on the carpet.

But then I looked in the rearview mirror. Leo's face was smudged with dirt, and he was clutching a tiny plastic horse he got from the gift shop. Before he fell asleep, he had whispered, "Bye bye, foal."

He seriously listened. He remembered the stupid name.

So maybe we'll go back to the farm. Eventually. After I buy a hazmat suit and figure out what a baby pig is called. (Wait, is it a piglet? Oh god, I need to google it).

Before you brave the petting zoo or the playground, make sure you check out Kianao's sustainable teething toys to keep your little one happily distracted from chewing on public fences.

The messy, honest FAQ about surviving farm visits

What do I do if my kid touches a baby donkey and then immediately puts their hand in their mouth?
First of all, welcome to my personal hell. Don't panic, but don't ignore it. My pediatrician was very clear that farm animals carry stuff like Salmonella. Grab them, abandon whatever fun thing you're doing, and march straight to a real bathroom. Wash their hands with warm water and real soap for at least 20 seconds. Hand sanitizer doesn't kill everything you find in barnyard dirt, so don't just rely on the pump bottle hanging on the fence.
Are petting zoos really safe for toddlers?
I mean, "safe" is a relative term when you've a toddler, right? They can be safe if you hover over them like an absolute helicopter. You have to teach them to approach animals from the side—never from behind, because donkeys and horses can kick. And keep their hands away from the animal's mouth. Basically, you've to be their bodyguard the entire time. It's not relaxing for you, but it's good for them, I guess?
How long is a donkey pregnant anyway?
Okay, I honestly learned this during my frantic internet deep-dive while hiding from the sun. Mother donkeys (jennies) are pregnant for about 12 months. An entire year. Can you imagine? I was miserable at 9 months. I can't fathom being pregnant for a whole year while standing in a field. I've immense respect for the jennies now.
Did you ever figure out the baby d drops?
Yes! Eventually, I realized that my brain just couldn't handle remembering one more tiny task. So I put the bottle of vitamin D drops directly next to my coffee maker. I couldn't make my morning coffee until I put a drop on my nipple or a pacifier. It was the only way I remembered. If your pediatrician tells you to use them, tie the habit to something you literally can't survive the day without. For me, that was caffeine.
What should I really pack for a farm visit?
Bring a change of clothes in a ziplock bag (so you can put the dirty clothes back in the bag), a teether if they're in that phase so they chew that instead of the farm equipment, and a water bottle that completely seals so farm dust doesn't get on the straw. Oh, and wear shoes you don't care about. Trust me on the shoes.