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July 2024 by Jen Meaders
This place has a lot of neat spots like feeding the turtles and ducks and a few of the other animals.
But in our Cheyenne mountain zoo you don't have to pay to go in with the parakeets. Nor in the Montgomery zoo either. You just pay for a seed stick if you want one but they don't stop you from going inside. ?
Also the big predatory animals need larger enclosures and tubs with water they look miserable. It made me sad.
The Bears had water but the tigers didn't. Tigers like to play in water too. I've witnessed it growing up in Colorado.
Please think about it. Look up some pics of Cheyenne mountain zoo. It's not easy making a zoo on a mountain. Here you have so much more space to work with. If they can. So can you.
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July 2024 by Laura McMartin
First time visiting. Cost: Price was average around $18, as we always want to support the care of animals, thought they gave student discounts but they don't. They did say they do for veterans. Asked if we wanted to include use of feeders throughout park & asked if we wanted to pay for stick of seeds for parakeet house. Added it to our bill, but realized afterward, we could have just brought a dollar & some quarters ourselves. Also found that feeder empty fast so if you're not careful it spills, which is good anyway, if you run out quarters you can just pick a pieces of feed off ground.
Trail: It's a mile or more if you venture into smaller areas. Trail was easy to walk. Wish they would have had more markers showing how far you've walked & how much is left. Even with a disability it was okay. Would suggest sunscreen & bug spray.
Animals: Lots of animals to see. Saw workers cleaning & even giving us some interesting facts about the animals. Barely any animals not seen in their enclosures.
Parakeet house: It's small, maybe 4-5 people can go in at once. You can still see all of the parakeets if you choose not to go in.Staff give you a large popcicle stick with bird feed on it when you pay the extra dollar, then they let you in. Only one of us went in. Wish the staff members would have warned us. They said the birds would all fly to you, land or walk on you....HOWEVER they DID NOT tell us that the Parakeets can pinch your skin hard enough to draw blood. When my daughter was in there, she had to ask the worker to help her get out because the birds were pinching her. When she came out, she had blood on the side of her neck. All the staff member said was, "yeah, they do that sometimes."
Overall, we still enjoyed ourselves, thought, it was fairly priced & understand animals are not predictable, so we still gave it a 4 star. It's worth visiting, just be cautious with the parakeet house.
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July 2024 by Kayla H
We love this zoo! They have so many animals that seem to be well cared for. There is food dispensers for certain animals that cost 25 cents for a handful of feed. We saw most of the animals during our visit, some were in their homes sheltering from the sun. Can’t wait to return again in the future
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July 2024 by Lina Alnaggar
This zoo had a surprisingly bigger range of animals than we expected given its size and location. What we noticed though (also cited by other reviewers) is that the animals seemed quite unhappy, the bigger ones being in cages that are smaller than they should be, many stress-pacing, and most understimulated with no variation in cages to resemble each animal's original habitat. We hope that the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) would investigate the conditions that these animals live in and help the zoo improve its layout and design of the animal cages, provide more educational opportunities to the zookeepers, and/or increase their funding for this zoo to assist in this.
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July 2024 by bird lova
this is genuinely such a fun place! it’s honestly better than most large zoos that i’ve been to. we went in a friday night and it wasn’t very busy at all. i am a massive animal lover and coming out of this place (as a teenager) i’ve been heavily considering working towards opening a zoo of sorts of my own in the future after college. i had a great time here with my family and i got to see so many cool animals!! my favorites were definitely the tigers, kangaroo, and the capybara! i also really enjoyed petting their baby goat and hanging out with some of the reptiles. their gift shop is also super cool and all of the stuffed animals were so incredibly cute i couldn’t resist buying a few! we also were able to get through all of the feeding stations in about $2 in quarters. also, their staff were so nice and when we ended up staying a little past closing by mistake, nobody gave us a hard time and i appreciated that. they also had ducks walking around and we even spotted some deer outside the fences of the zoo which was very cool to see!
i do have a couple main complaints that did end up resulting in the loss of a star, but i still want to stress that my overall experience was positive and fun looking back and i would go back in a heartbeat! first of all, i noticed that a quite a large handful of their enclosures seemed too small for the animal inside, and you could tell that the animals were stressed from that. a lot of the cats like the ocelots were pacing a LOT and that is a sure sign of zoocosis which made me very sad to see. in addition, the parakeet house was SO incredibly fun and i enjoyed it so much and this wouldn’t stop me personally from going again, however, you are essentially paying an extra dollar to be bitten by birds. this might sound frightening, and honestly it might be to some people, but to me it didn’t stop me from loving the experience overall. however, just expect to leave the parakeet house with a few bird bites since they climb on you and nip at you for food. i don’t believe the birds are trying to be malicious, but the nips become quite painful at times. if birds freak you out or you don’t do well with essentially hard pinches, then i wouldn’t recommend it, and i’m honestly surprised people let their young kids in here and they’re able to walk out without crying. also recognize that the dollar gets you both into the parakeet house and gets you a feeding stick. you are not paying for the feeding stick but you are spaying to go in. my parents did not realize this and thought they were just buying a feeding stick so they unfortunately were not able to go in. this might have been on us though.
overall, i had so much fun at this zoo, i just wish their enclosures were bigger and more entertaining and enjoyable for the animals.
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July 2024 by Julie Sacha
loved it. Took my young granddaughters and they loved feeding lots of animals.
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July 2024 by Bre Hauer
It's a little zoo but it seemed like all the animals were well cared for! Beware of the parakeets they get a little nippy but they're too cute!!!!! Lol
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July 2024 by Margaret Lawhorn
Was very pleasantly surprised by this little zoo! If you don't care about the fancy bells and wistles of a big zoo, this zoo has lots of animals to see and a good variety. The animals were active and easily viewable even in their sleeping areas. Lots of feeding stations for various animals throughout the zoo only a quarter each. My son loved it, and so did we!
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July 2024 by Brittany Todd
Smaller zoo with lots to see. Brought my 4 kids here and we all enjoyed it.
Our highlights were:
The petting zoo had a decent amount of animals to pet.
There were many feeding stations where you could feed different animals (cost $0.25).
The peacock showed off his beautiful feathers for about 10 minutes solid, he was gorgeous.
The parakeet enclosure (cost $1 per person), the birds loved landing on people, but they nibbled at us the whole time- recommend to cover your fingers and toes- I pulled mine into my hoodie. Worth it, but try to be prepared. We had 5-10 birds on each of us at all time.
Spent about 3 hours there and we are already planning our next visit
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July 2024 by Teresa LaFranca
Beautiful place. Nice staff.
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July 2024 by Rough Country Girl88
Zoo is always clean and you can tell the animals are all well taken care of! Can’t wait for our next visit!
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July 2024 by Michael Morse
I'm 75 years old and a disabled veteran. I've been to zoo's all over the world, this zoo is the best I've ever been to. The staff was great , the gift shop alone is fantastic
Will tell all my friends and family about this zoo!! Will be back soon
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June 2024 by Cyn on the Go
Best zoo ever. There is plenty of free parking lot. Friendly staff. There are no waiting lines. Friendly staff. There are many opportunities to feed the animals, and when you buy your tickets at the entrance, they offer you coins for the food dispensers. It's is clean, the animals well take care off. They have an impressive variety of wild animals, and it's the closest I've ever been. Highly recommend ?
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June 2024 by Philip Strange
This is our favorite zoo
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June 2024 by Donna Jo
2024: Still a fun zoo! They've put some time and money into this place the past couple of years, and the upgrades are nice! The gift shop is a lot bigger than it used to be. Landscape is pretty. Some of the exhibits have been upgraded as well. Enjoyed a nice day with my boys here for my birthday! No complaints, besides getting pooped on in the parakeet house. Lol! But the parakeets were so cool and very friendly.
2020: This zoo is not your flashy city type of zoo, it's country, and it still makes for a fun day! Living in the same town, I've grown up visiting this place, and I've always liked it, even as a young child. It reminds me of walking through the woods, peaceful. Some of the negative reviews posted are a bit judgemental and harsh, and I disagree with them. The animals are well kept, and during our last visit it was a very hot 100 degree day. I overheard people complaining about the animals being too hot, but what are they expecting? Animals NATURALLY live in the outdoors, not in the air conditioned lifestyle our society is accustomed to. The animals have shady areas available, and just because they are laying down to keep cool and reserve energy doesn't mean they are depressed, dying or miserable. I also observed staff walking around doing head counts and wellness checks during the heat, and ensuring the animals had fresh water and food. The enclosures are as natural as can be in my opinion. Some animals have cement slabs, probably to deter the animal from digging and escaping. Some view this as cruelty, but what do they expect when going to a zoo that houses carnivorous, aggressive animals? I recommend this zoo, but maybe on a cooler day (not 100°), as there is a lot of walking. My 4 year old loves this place, and always enjoys ending the day by playing on the playground equipment and feeding the turtles in the pond. The prices are definitely a bit high now, so that's stopped us from visiting multiple times a year.
