Big Joel's Safari Petting Zoo & Educational Park

2020 was definitely a wild year! We didn’t know what to expect earlier this year and had to delay our opening for the season, cancel field trips, birthday parties, and events due to COVID-19. We had to cease all building projects and prioritize our budget because we didn’t know when we could open at the beginning. Our biggest concern was having enough capital to buy all our hay for the year by the end of May! When the all clear was given to open up in mid May visitors startin...g coming in. Which is why we want to sincerely thank all of our customers for your support this year. We had more support than ever before. Don’t worry though Big Joel has a busy schedule for the off season with many new exhibits being built, things to do, and park expansion. So get ready for spring 2021! Another fun announcement is that you made Big Joel’s Winter Wonderland a success and it will return in 2021 with more lights, new areas, and more! Happy New Year and we hope you have an outstanding 2021! See you in the spring.

Today is the last day you can visit the park before we officially close for the winter season until spring 2021! The park is open from 2:00 - 7:00 pm and we look forward to seeing you.

Still looking for last minute holiday gift ideas? If you ask these two guys they know what to get! Big Joel’s Safari gift certificates and 2021 season passes make great gifts for the animal loving person in your life and they are available to purchase at our location during open hours or over the phone. Our gift shop also has a wide variety of stuffed animals, toys, puzzles, books, coffee mugs, and more to choose from. Happy holidays from Wally, Bourbon, and the rest of the animal crew at the Safari!

There are only two days left to come out to visit our Winter Wonderland before we close for the season! We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and look forward to seeing you.

Big Joel’s Winter Wonderland is open everyday this coming week and weekend, except for Christmas Day December 25th. December 21, 22, 23 from 2:00-7:00pm December 24th, special Christmas Eve hours from 4:00-8:00pm December 26 & 27 from 2:00-7:00pm... Come see the animals, decorations, lights, warm fire pits, and more! Our walk thru experience requires no reservations or advance tickets, so come on out and celebrate the holidays with us. More information about Big Joel’s Winter Wonderland can be found by clicking on this link: https://fb.me/e/1YoAOgZro

Merry Christmas from our zoo crew to yours at home. Have a fun and safe holiday!

It looks like the weather is going to cooperate with us for our Winter Wonderland! We are open from 2-7pm today and to find out more about it just click on the link below. No reservations or advanced ticket sales are required. We also do not sell advanced tickets so please be aware of scammers. Happy holidays!

A little sneak peak video of one of our new additions to debut in 2021. This is our young female mountain coatimundi and she is quite the handful, but in a fun way. She is in our quarantine stage for the moment and will be moved to new winter quarters soon. We have already have our male and since he is a little older and bigger we will put them side by side for the time being. They are very smart animals and can be quite mischievous! You may know Boots our long time resident coatimundi, but she is a white nose coati and they are smaller than the mountains and have a different color. Coatimundi are from central and South America. They are basically the South American version of the North American raccoon in many ways.

Our Winter Wonderland will be open special hours this evening from 4-8:00 pm tonight! It will be a little chilly but we will be open. We are closed for Christmas Day and will be open this weekend on the 26th & 27th before we close for the rest of winter. Happy Holidays!!!

Mimi is excited that our brand new penny press is finally here! It has 5 different animal presses to choose from. Camel, bison, ring tailed lemur, alligator, and zebra with our Big Joel’s Safari logo on the back of each option. We have had each of those species since we opened in 2012. We are open from 2 - 7pm today for our Winter Wonderland!

Happy Halloween from Big Joel’s Safari! Celebrating Halloween with the animals with some pumpkin enrichment fun today!!!

It’s a crisp yet beautiful morning at the Safari and the animals are ready to see you! The weather forecast looks great for the whole weekend (no high winds or rain, woohoo!). This is the last weekend for our Spooky Safari and before we change to our new November days & hours of operation. We hope everyone has and fun safe weekend no matter where you go! November 2- November 22nd days and hours Monday: 9-3pm Tuesday: closed... Wednesday: closed Thursday: 9-3pm Friday: 9-3pm Saturday: 9-4pm Sunday: 11-4pm Big Joel’s Winter Wonderland beginning November 27th: please check www.bigjoelsafari.com or previous posts for more information

This is the last week of our Spooky Safari and before we switch to our new November days and hours of operation. We say New because it will be the first season ever that the zoo will stay open after Halloween weekend. So be sure to check our website www.bigjoelsafari.com for that information and a sneak peak of what we are offering at the park this holiday season as more details will be posted soon. Big Joel and Mimi are excited that the weather is supposed to clear up after Thursday so everyone can have an awesome Halloween weekend ! Here is a throwback picture of our Watusi cattle from a few autumn’s ago. Gunslinger our bull is pictured between two of his ladies!

We have a special Holiday announcement for Big Joel’s Winter Wonderland and that is we will be open Christmas Eve from 4:00 to 8:00pm! We know that many of your traditional family holiday plans have changed or been canceled due to the state of things at the moment, as have ours and many of our staff members. It was a group decision by Big Joel, Mimi, and crew to open up for this special night. If you don’t have any plans and are looking for something fun to do this Christmas ...Eve we will be open. So please feel free to share! Big Joel’s Winter Wonderland is a walk thru experience where you can pet and feed many of the animals. It is a seasonal animal display as many of our warmer climate animals are inside for the winter (there are still lot of animals to visit with!). Don’t forget we have lots of lights, decorations, you can grab a cocoa or more at Rudys Refreshments, keep warm by our fire pits, and enjoy your favorite Christmas songs being played on our speakers throughout the park. We will be updating our website www.bigjoelsafari.com and Facebook soon. More detailed and information can be found under events section on our page. Thanks and Happy holidays

Howdy!!! Sully and few of his animal friends have made the move inside for the colder temperatures. If we have a warm streak some of them can venture back out, but don’t worry there are still lots of animals out and about to see and interact with!

Big Joel’s Spooky Safari is everyday at the park in October!!! More information about us can be found at www.bigjoelsafari.com In the mean time can you find the BAT in the pic below!

New update this year is that we will be extending our regular season into November. Typically we close for the season after Halloween, so please see the days and hours below. November 1st thru November 22nd Days and hours of operation Monday: 9-3pm... Tuesday: closed Wednesday: closed Thursday: 9-3pm Friday: 9-3pm Saturday: 9-4pm Sunday: 11-4pm Check out our previous posts for information regarding Big Joel’s Winter Wonderland this holiday season!

Important announcement time as the dates have been finalized. Big Joel’s Winter Wonderland will be back this holiday season! Some of our long time fans may remember that we had this event years ago. Holiday Season 2020: November 27th thru December 27th Open Thursdays - Sunday’s from 2:00 - 7:00pm... Additional dates: December 21, 22, & 23 from 2:00 - 7:00pm We will be closed December 24th and 25th for Christmas Eve and Christmas Come on out for a new experience as the park will be decorated for the holiday season with lots of lights, decorations, and more. It will still be a walk thru experience and with the event going into the evening hours the park layout will be changing. We will have more announcements about Big Joel’s Winter Wonderland in the near future so stay tuned!

Don’t forget after you come visit our Spooky Safari to check out our friends at Pumpkins Galore just down the road! They have pumpkins, gourds, and much more including their new corn maze which features our logo and Clarence the camel. For more information about them and the corn maze check out their Facebook page. Once again the corn maze is located at Pumpkins Galore less than two miles from our location.

Peaches and Erica our Moluccan cockatoos get to go for a golf cart ride!!!! With the upcoming cooler weather coming soon they are joining our other warm weather birds inside theIr heated building. The building is off exhibit, but if we get a nice stretch of consistent warm weather they can come back out to their outdoor enclosures.

These guys are enjoying the great weather this morning! Nothing like starting the morning off with some goat hi jinx!!!! We are open everyday for the month of October before we switch to new days and hours in November. October hours: Weekdays 9-3pm... Saturday 9-5pm Sunday’s 11-5pm For more information go to www.bigjoelsafari.com

Well good morning!!! This little fella or gal as we do not know yet is getting to age where it starts to check out the world from the pouch. Baby kangaroos are the size of a large bean when born and then make the journey up to moms pouch. A better way to put this into perspective is a human baby when first born would have to crawl up hill a distance of half of a football field to get to the pouch if it was a marsupial. Then at that stage they attach themselves to one of two nipples and grow. Pictured at this point in this baby’s life it is approximately 3 1/2-4 months old when it starts to poke their heads out of the pouch. Have a great day!

Our hand painted picture boards are back and just in time for fall! Big Joel’s Dad is a former art teacher who is the main artist for the boards and his mom is a pretty good painter too. Due to delayed opening this season and storage problems we had to completely redo all the animal picture boards and we hope you enjoy them.

Our park greeter Safari Bob and his skeleton crew can be found throughout the park during our spooky Safari. Some of them are hard at work while others could use some motivation!