Spring Break Gone Wild

Spring Break Gone Wild ... Oh and there were some animals too!

We had a fun afternoon yesterday at a petting zoo not too far from our house. We pass it every once in a while on the way to something else and never have time to stop, so I thought we would make it our destination this time. The kids had a great time. We were able to feed all the animals and even got to pet some.

If you can read it, the sign on the fence says "Yes, Ostrich Bite". They were pretty aggressive coming after their food. Fortunately they can't peck too far through the mesh fence and they have tubes to pour the food down into a tray for them to eat out of. If they didn't have those tubes, I guess our only other options would be to throw the food at them (and while my children do enjoy throwing things, I try to discourage throwing food!) or just feed the more gentle animals. Even with the tubes the kids were a little hesitant, but they all mustered up the courage. The ostrich were bigger than I was, so look how little Bryson is next to them.

They also had Emu. They weren't nearly as aggressive as the ostrich were! They weren't quite as big either, so that made them a little less intimidating too. The kids thought it was neat that some had blue necks.
The deer were really sweet. They were very friendly and gentle. Bryson was a little hesitant at first, he had his finger bitten while feeding a horse once, but when he saw the other kids doing it, he was willing to give it a go. They all loved feeding and petting the deer.
This was Bryson's favorite animal. This miniature donkey loved him for some reason. Whenever Bryson would come back, the same donkey would come over to him. Bryson would hug it and it would nuzzle his shirt. It was pretty sweet and he was just Bryson's size!
This was Maddy's favorite animal. She named this donkey Christy. I had to pull her away from Christy to finally leave to eat lunch. She could have pet her all day - literally.
All the kids loved the rainbow lorikeets. We had little cups of nectar and they would come and drink out of the cups. They always wanted to land on Maddy, but it took them a little while to warm up to the boys. (Maybe because they never hold still?!) We finally got birds to land on all of them. Maddy was thrilled in this picture because a 2nd bird came over. It was really hard to catch 2 birds on someone because usually the 1st bird would fly away right after the 2nd one landed. The birds were really interesting - they are so beautiful and colorful, but also they have fuzzy grey tongues (which we all thought was weird).
And here is poor Ally. She is always getting drug around with us to places she really doesn't care about. I guess turn about will be fair play when the older kids will get drug to places that are "too young" for them later so that she can enjoy them. Such is life! Look at those sleepy eyes! It must be nap time and therefore time to go.