Years ago I would go to "Pet Farm Park" at Frying Pan Park to see tortoises and other animals.

That place has long since shut down but I was wondering if there were other zoos/parks in Fairfax where one can get a hands on experience with the animals.

Thanks!

Try the Reston Zoo. restonzoo.com

Frying Pan may not be a petting zoo but you can still see animals, it's still a working model farm

You could try west virginia, I hear they have a close relationship with many farm type animals.

There's still a petting zoo at frying pan park.

Like Nubie said, the Reston Zoo (still not sure why that hasn't been torn down and turned into houses. It is on prime property).

Also, it is fair season. A lot of area county fairs have animal petting areas.

because no one questioned where the animal babies go, the baby croc that escaped that was denied in the WP article, and the dilapidated coding - 1000 visitors a day for two flushing toilets and two handicap spaces.

Also, they have a CO2 chamber where they gas the bunny unwanted.
it is a right to the double door entrance of the petting barn - just ask Kayte the general curator. She is the educated liar for the roadside zoo.

Reston Pet Zoo has been around since I was a wee lad. There are family pictures of me there sitting on the tortoise they used to have, feeding goats and such stuff. I took my son there when he was much younger and was not impressed. Very expensive admission cost and not a lot of "bang for the buck".

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That's not a ladybug, that's a cannapiller.

Was "Pet Farm Park" then became -> "Reston Animal Park" then became -> "Reston Zoo" and was never located at Frying Pan Park. Agree 100% with Warhawk on admission cost plus the cost of everything else once inside the place. Had my son not been only 18 months old when I took him there I'm sure he'd have been even more bored out of his mind.

I always thought a good money maker with the crowd around here would be an "erotic petting zoo"


Investors PM me!

an evil petting zoo?

There used to be the Pet-a-pet farm out that way, but the Reston Zoo is awesome :) They are friendly, reasonable, and you can get some good pets of goats, sheep, emus, llamas and pigs. They have a little safari ride and we've even had the camels come up to the fence for a pet and a snack. The ride has zebra, big horn cattle, camels, some sort of deer, bison, etc. They have kangaroo and snakes and frogs although those aren't pet-able.

The Canadian Geese will come up to you and so do the ducks and swans although they can be a big aggressive for the little ones.

I love that place. My boyfriend and I go often enough that we got a season pass for the fun - one of the better ones around.

Luray Zoo is also interesting, but not as much to pet.

Down by Natural Bridge the drive through safari park is loads of fun although you have to be prepared to have feed all over the inside of your car and a lot of slobber on your hands.

fourleaf Wrote:
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> Down by Natural Bridge the drive through safari
> park is loads of fun although you have to be
> prepared to have feed all over the inside of your
> car and a lot of slobber on your hands.


+10 for useful heads-up as my wife wants me to take the kids down there in the spring.

You're already here, this place is full of animals.

Another tip for the safari park - get several buckets of feet (it's like 4 buckets for $10 or something reasonable). We would occasionally lose a bucket to an animal that got to grabby. You hold out the buckets and they eat out of the bucket mainly - the highland sheep and camels just took the whole bucket right out of my hand. If we didn't have backup then it would not have been as fun the rest of the trip. Kids would LOVE this.

They said not to feed the zebra, long horn cattle or buffalo - we did all three before we realized we broke the rules. The slobber was mainly from the long horns so you may have less slobber with the other animals. Everyone was relatively gentle although they were obviously very interested in the food buckets.

It was just my boyfriend and I when we went but it was so much fun we cant wait to go back.

^ buckets of FEED, rather.

place closed. everyone got ASS CANCER!