Travel Tales: Hunt Club Farm Petting Zoo in Virginia Beach

Note: I do a little bit of traveling, and I love writing about my adventures and the things I see (especially when it means advertising a small business), so I decided to create a new portion of my blog! "Travel Tales" will talk about interesting little places or things I experience while traveling. And since a lot of inspiration for my regular posts happen while I'm traveling, why not put two great things into one? Enjoy!

On the last day of our Virginia Beach vacation, Robby and I decided to visit Hunt Club Farm. When we arrived at Virginia Beach, I found an ad for this little attraction in my handy dandy Virginia Beach travel guide. “1 bird stick free!” the ad read. What the heck is a bird stick??, I thought.

Hunt Club Farm, Virginia Beach's only petting farm, looked like a fun, little place to visit. Robby wasn't as intrigued.... I could hear the thoughts going through his head “We currently live on a farm. Why would you want to pay money to go pick up chickens, when you could pick up chickens at home for free??” His alleged thoughts had a point.

Well, actually, it was almost (kind of) a research visit for another project I am working on. (More to come on that later.... It's too much in the early stages to give much info away!)

So anyway, I wanted to go and Robby played along. “Oh, don't act like you're not interested in playing with farm animals,” I thought to myself when Robby continued to give me his “Are you kidding me?” sideways glance.

We hopped into the car, and punched the address into our GPS: 2388 London Bridge Road. It was only about 10 minutes from the oceanfront and a pretty, little drive, which took us over Rudee Inlet. The farm was easy to spot. The barn closest to the road had a giant pumpkin on top of it. As we pulled into the parking lot, I looked to my right to see bunches of beautiful flowers and vegetables for sale at their gift shop. We strolled past the flowers, and I noticed there were some strawberry plants on sale at 50% off. Hmmmm....

Around the gift shop we meandered, and with a sharp left turn, we found the Petting Farm. I was expecting a barn or two with a couple little pins that housed a couple little goats and chickens and maybe a rabbit or two with a parakeet thrown into the mix for whatever this bird stick was that they were talking about. (And that would've suited me just fine!) But what I found was SO much more!

Upon paying our $6 per person entry fee (Just $6!!!), we stopped first at the goat pin. (We decided to forego the $5 cup of feed since we could feed chickens, horses, cattle, and bunnies anytime we wanted at our own farm.) I had never really had any dealings with goats, and from the anti-sheep mentality my dad ingrained in me while growing up, I figured they were too close to sheep to really get attached to. That was the second thing I was wrong about that day. They were so cute!!! And so well-behaved, too! Of course, as soon as we came up to the fence, they jumped up wanting grain. But they weren't rude to the stupid people who didn't bring them any treats. They didn't bite or nibble, and they were happy to just have a nice petting if you didn't have any grain.

As I'm petting the goats and thinking “I could get used to this animal!” I realize I am missing Robby. I turn around to see where he went, and I find him walking towards me with a cup of feed. He didn't say anything. He just had a smile on his face. “I knew you couldn't resist,” I told him with a smile. (To me, he is as cute as my newly-found, goat buddies.)

My new friend, "Bo." (Pronounced with a Spanish accent.)

Next was the chicken house, which ended up being more than double the size I had envisioned and contained not only chickens but huge turkeys as well! And did I mention you could go in the pins with some of the animals? Chickens and goats included! I was fine around chickens, but I wondered how most “non-farm folk” would feel about just coming into an enclosed cage with these sometimes spastic and intimidating birds. I watched a mother and her two children. She didn't bat an eyelash when she opened that gate and led her kiddos into the chicken pin. In fact, she showed one of them how to pick the chicken up. If I were a mother, that's exactly what I would have done, but I grew up on a farm. Maybe she did, too? Or maybe that just goes to show how very important agritourism opportunities like this are to growing and developing children. I smiled.

Walking a bit further, we saw the bunny cages. There were only a few bunnies to be seen and you were not allowed to touch them. Probably a good idea... If they get excited, they could rip your arms up pretty good. But simply viewing them was perfectly okay. They had short-haired and long-haired bunnies; however when we visited, they were in the middle of their nap time, so we didn't bother them too much.

There was a smaller, probably 7x5 foot building next to the bunny cage. As I walked up to it, I could hear small little chirps coming from the structure. I peeked in to find little baby chicks. As I looked at the display outside of their cage, I found that these chicks were hatched at a variety of local schools. What a cool thing!!! Not only are these folks providing a learning opportunity for people who come to their farm, but they're reaching out to take the farm and learning opportunities to kids! Some of the local schools included Hickory Middle School, Grace Preschool, and Prince of Peace Preschool.

Strolling a little farther, we came upon a HUGE, enclosed cage. As we walked up a mother and daughter were sitting inside this beautiful enclosure that contained a relaxing waterfall that fell into about a nine-foot-wide pond. There were more beautiful flowers all the way around the pond and trees shooting up everywhere. It was a little oasis. A little BIRD oasis. I looked at the mother and daughter again. The little girl had her arm extended and a little parakeet was sitting on the end. The little girl looked nervous as the mom lovingly whispered “It's okay... Look at the pretty bird.” I could tell the little girl wanted to love the birdie but just had no idea what to do with this thing on the end of her arm. Do they just land on the end of your arm? I thought. Are they that tame?? And then I saw it. In the little girl's hand....

“So that's what a bird stick is!” I reacted. It was simply a Popsicle stick covered in bird seed used to attract the birds to you. I smiled. I not only solved my mystery of the bird stick, but I was also able to see its majestic powers in action.

As we walked in the bird house, we were greeted by blue, green yellow, and white parakeets. Dozens of them!!! They were very friendly, but you also learned very quickly they were not afraid to fly right past your head. They, of course, knew what they were doing, but a few times, I definitely thought I was going to get a bird to the noggin! We walked around admiring the beautiful birds. Man, I wish I had gotten a bird stick... And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a hand holding a bird stick with a little bird sitting contently on the hand munching away at the bird seed. As I followed the arm attached to that hand, I found Robby.

“Where did you get that bird stick?!” I piped. He just smiled. (He's a man of few words.)

After leaving the bird cage, we walked past pot-bellied pigs, alpacas, sheep, larger goats, chickens, ducks, peacocks, and even a zebra. The pins these animals were in were well-maintained and very comfortable for the animals. The animal lots contained little houses and shelters and were under tall trees that provided a generous amount of shade from the hot sun. Their enclosures looked so comfortable and nice that I thought “Shoot... I could take a nap on some hay in there!” It was truly a little farm oasis. In addition, the grounds also contained a children's playground, some funny photo backgrounds and props for memory capturing, a little stage or platform that was hooked to an old antique John Deere tractor, and to top it off, there was a network of catwalks (or goatwalks, rather) stretching throughout the trees above the goat pins. I looked up and found two little goats looking down at me waiting for me to send grain up a make-shift food trolley.

  

Top: A little goat looks down at me from the "goat-walk."
Bottom: The system of pulleys to send treats up to goats on the "goat-walk."

I took a deep relaxing breath. I've always known farm life was for me, and even though I had my own farm to go home to, I was definitely happy to hand over the $6 admission fee to be a guest on someone else's farm. Furthermore, I knew how much that $6 entry fee meant to this farm operaton, and I was happy to support this awesome place. In addition to daily admission tickets, they also sell season passes for anyone that lives in or close to Virginia Beach. If I lived there, I would definitely be the owner of one of those season passes.

As we walked out of the Hunt Club Farm Petting Zoo, I looked at the brochure I had picked up before we entered. In addition to walking through the farm, kids could also enjoy pony rides during their visit and there were other event opportunities throughout the year that included a summer farm camp, school field trips, a farmer's market, a Renaissance Faire, a Harvest Fair, a Halloween Festival, and a Country Christmas! Not to mention, you could book the farm for birthday parties or group events. This farm had it going on!

We turned the corner to head to the parking lot, but before we made it to the car, I had another stop I needed to make. I wondered into the gift store and through the plants to find those little ever producing strawberry plants I had eyed earlier. I picked up three of them and said “You all are coming home with me.” Robby gave me his sideways glance and said “What are you going to do with those?”

“Go home, plant them, and grow strawberries,” I said with an excited smile on my face. He lovingly rolled his eyes. As I handed my three dollars over to the lady at the register, who referred to the farm staff and owners as her “farm family,” I thought to myself about Robby's eye-roll: “That's okay... Roll your eyes now, but later I'll turn around to find you standing there enjoying a handful of strawberries with a smile on your face.”

We hopped in the car with our new strawberry plants and headed home. Our vacation was over. But thanks to Hunt Club Farm, I was excited to get back home to my farm babies.