My Kind of Zoo

Farm-in-the-Zoo
Presented by John Deere

To Folks who live in the city, farm animals such as cows and pigs often are just as strange and unfamiliar as lions and rhinos.  For nearly four decades, the Farm-in-the-Zoo has been a spot of sylvan countryside nestled in the heart of a bustling metropolis.  It has introduced visitors of all ages and backgrounds to farm life through a variety of animals, activities and demonstrations.  With only two percent of the nation’s population living on family farms, the Farm-in-the-Zoo’s three acres of country in the city helps us understand and value the role modern agriculture plays in our lives.

Behind the New Exhibit

The renovated Farm-in-the-Zoo Presented by John Deere opened to large crowds of eager visitors at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Sept. 14, 2002. The first exhibit to debut as a result of generous gifts to My Kind of Zoo, the new Farm brings children and adults into the midst of the sights, sounds and smells of a modern farm.

The Main Barn is filled with a variety of activity centers, including a living beehive, a chick hatchery, and a weather station where visitors “control” the weather. Visitors can also climb behind the steering wheel of a real John Deere tractor. Nestled among the crop fields is the new Farmhouse, where visitors take part in butter churning and weaving demonstrations and other scheduled events, or just settle in front of the hearth to enjoy a book from the library of farm-related children’s books.

There are rabbit and poultry yards, an area where children meet a sheep face to face or look a steer in the eye, and a new goat yard where children touch and groom the animals. A sow and her piglets can be found in the Livestock Barn nearly year-round.

The new Farm would not have been possible without an extraordinary gift from the John Deere Foundation.  The Crown Family provided extraordinary support for the creation of the Judge John J. Crown Dairy Barn.

Westphalia Surge, Inc., generously donated the state-of-the-art milking parlor, where visitors watch the Lincoln Park dairy herd being milked—one of the Farm’s most popular activities.

In addition, major endowment support has been contributed by the Siragusa Foundation, the Suzanne Smelcer Robinson Foundation and Mary and Nick Babson. Additional generous support was provided by Mr. and Mrs. John D. Fornengo, the Harry Katz and Pearlman Families memory of Kent Pearlman, Abbott Laboratories, in memory of Walter S. Mander and Walter Misher, and by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs

Meet the Animals

The residents of the farm provide a wonderful starting point for children to learn about the world of animals. Like her other bovine colleagues at the Farm-in-the-Zoo Presented by John Deere, this Holstein produces about 100 glasses of milk every day. The fact that visitors can watch milkings several times a day all year round sets the zoo apart from agricultural exhibits found elsewhere.

Along with dairy cattle, the new Farm is be home to goats, beef cattle, sheep, pigs, ponies, chickens, rabbits, birds, and other farm animals—and all in greater numbers than before. What’s more, visitors can learn about the role that non-domesticated animals play on the farm: from the mice and rats who prey on the farmer’s wheat to the barn owl and snakes that keep the rodent populations under control.