Little Blue's Traveling Zoo

Today I'm talking with Irene at Little Blue's Traveling Zoo. You can also follow on Facebook.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Irene at Little Blues Traveling Zoo. How are you, Irene? I'm great, how are you, Mary? I'm good. You guys are in Minnesota, yes? Yes. Okay, I wasn't positive, so I thought I should ask.

00:29
So what do you guys do? Well I have a traveling petting zoo which means that I just take my little crew of farm animals around to different parties. We're normally around the twin cities except kind of the area beyond. But we do like birthday parties, community events, church events, festivals, just kind of whatever anyone would want a petting zoo for. Okay and when did you start doing it? I can't talk this morning. And how did you get into it?

01:00
So my dad actually started it when me and my sisters were in college. Probably about four years ago, he started it, like started the idea of it. Um, and I always called it his mid crisis that he just started a petting zoo cause he thought it would be fun. Um, but I got my degree in agriculture education and so I was going to be a high school agriculture teacher. And I did this for my dad one summer cause it was a lot busier than he thought it would be and he has a full time job. So I did it for him one summer and I decided I actually.

01:29
really loved and I wanted to stick with it. And so now I'm doing all of the management side of it as well. And I love it. It's just so much fun. How much has it grown since you started it? It's amazing how much it's grown. We started out in the fall our first year, and so we only did a couple events that fall, which was a lot of fun, but that's all we did. And then that next summer, I think I did like 15 events a month in the summer, which I was ecstatic about.

01:57
And now fast forward two years, this August actually, I have 39 events in August. It's amazing. I just get busier and busier and we have a second truck trailer now too, so we can do twice the amount of events. So it's just been, it's been a wild ride. Okay. And I don't want to get real personal on finances, but how much does it cost to book you guys? So my base price for two hours is $600. And then I have a trip charge of $1.50 per mile from the farm.

02:28
Okay, so it's a lucrative business if you have that many people booked for August. Yeah, I mean animals sure cost a lot to take care of, but it's able to pay for them and pay for my own living expenses, so I feel very blessed. That's amazing. So you guys don't really have a homestead as it were, but you work with livestock and you have a business that serves the public, so I figured that you might fit the bill for my podcast.

02:58
Um, what kind of animals do you, do you take around to show people? So I take goats, sheep, pigs, turkeys, and then I have an alpaca and a mid sized cow. So I usually take all those animals and then either the alpaca or the cow. And is it just you taking them or do you have help? I help. I have my amazing friend Jordan, who I convinced to move up from, uh, Iowa to stay here and do this job with me.

03:27
And so it's both of our full-time job. Okay. So it's the two of you moving the animals from where they live to wherever they're going. Okay. Cause that's a lot of critters to move by yourself. And are the animals with the program, are they, are they on board? Are they happy? Do they love doing what they do? Do you think? Yes, they really are. Cause we have some who don't love it and they stay at home.

03:52
But we have a bunch that love it. I have in particular this one goat, his name is Mr. Waddles. And when we try to leave the farm without him, he just stands at the gate and he just yells. He is so mad. He does not want to be left behind. They love going out. They love the fresh green grass that they get. And they love directing and meeting new people. Awesome. So when you take them places, where...

04:18
Where are the events usually held? I mean, is it outside? Is it inside? Is it both? Yeah, most of them are outside. I have a strong preference for being outside because then we can get a nice breeze going through and it doesn't get as stuffy. But in the winter I do some indoor events and for the indoor events you have to lay down a tarp and then some shavings and all that stuff for the animals. So I prefer being outside but we do indoor events as well. Okay.

04:44
So tell me about the latest event. Like I want to get a feeling for how it goes, how it works. Yeah, my last event was Kai Chai Saga days in Chasago, which is my home turf. So I love doing that one. It's just kind of their city days. And so we get there about 45 minutes ahead of time to set up, pull the truck and trailer up into the park and we have a 30 by 30 foot pen, just six foot panels that we connect to each other and make a big pen. And then we have.

05:13
couple tents we set up to make sure the animals have shade. On really hot days I also have fans and a jetter all set up for the animals. But yeah we just set up their pen, water, hay nets, all that stuff for them. And then once we get started we let 15 to 20 people in the pen at a time and they can brush the animals, pet them, all that good stuff. Okay so what do people think when they come to these events or these birthday parties or whatever it is you're doing? I mean what kind of feedback do you get?

05:42
I get great feedback, which just makes me so happy. The best thing that I can hear that people tell me how friendly and calm and healthy the animals are, because I really do pride ourselves on that animals are our family. It's not like we get baby animals in the spring and get rid of them in the fall. They stay with us their whole life. We just love them and we try to take the best care of them. People love it. They love how calm they are because for a lot of petting zoos, you don't get to actually go inside the pen with the animals.

06:10
unlike with ours where you can come in and brush them and pet them and all that stuff. So that's the most kind of feedback I get is how calm and friendly they are. It just always makes me so happy. Yeah, I mean, obviously that's going to help if you want it to go well. I mean, I don't mean to state the obvious as dumb, but yeah, you want your animals to be comfortable with people and new situations and new places because otherwise it would never work. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, they're exposed to so much different stuff.

06:40
We were at a speedway, like a racetrack, and that was really fun. But they saw monster trucks for the first time. They weren't thrilled at first, but they settled in pretty quick once they realized nothing's going to hurt them. Well, they're better than my dog. I can't take my dog anywhere because all she does is bark at people. She, we got her in 2020, so she was never really socialized to anything because we didn't take her anywhere because we didn't go anywhere.

07:09
And she was a puppy. So when people come to visit, she barks at them for a good five minutes. And then she finally decides that it's safe to sniff their hand. And pretty much once she does that, she settles down. But even in the car or the SUV, we park. And if she's with us, she's in the back seat. And if anybody walks into the parking lot, even 100 feet away, she's barking at them.

07:37
I'm like, you're so dumb. They're number one, they're not going to hurt you and number two, you might like them. But no, she doesn't. She does not people well. They're warning you. Yeah, she does not people well. So yeah, managing to get your farm animals acclimated to all the different things is a trick and it's a skill. And I'm really impressed because we can't get the dog acclimated to anything here.

08:04
My parents have a farm dog and he's definitely not as well behaved as some of the farm animals are. Yeah, it's crazy. Dogs are supposed to be your best friend and apparently she's just me and my husband and my son's best friend and everybody else can just go away. I don't know. She's crazy. Okay, so I have questions but I'm trying to phrase them in a way that doesn't sound obnoxious because they're kind of obnoxious.

08:33
So yeah, I'm stuck. The, okay, do you have rules for when people go in with the animals? Yes, I do. My two main ones that I tell kids is no running and no feeding the animals. Cause when we start getting food involved, my goats can get kind of jumpy and I want them to stay as calm as possible. And we bring pigs as well. I don't want any little fingers near those pigs mouths. Yeah, no. So those are my two main ones. I-

09:02
I found, you know, if you try to tell more than three girls at the gate, kids just stop listening. You know, I don't blame them. Kids have a short attention span. They just want to come in. They want to visit the animals. So I kind of just take to those two. And then you have somebody monitoring everybody in the pen. And if they notice something like, you know, a kid's trying to touch their legs or pull on their tail, you know, you're like, oh, maybe not do that. But generally, it's just a no running and the no feeding. And that serves us pretty well. Okay. So I'm going to ask you the same question that I asked Andrew.

09:32
at the St. Croix Valley Hobby Farm when I interviewed him. He spoke very highly of you guys, and I think you guys have a working relationship somewhere along the line. But I asked him, because he has the hobby farm where he has people come in and visit with the animals. He doesn't, last I knew he didn't take them anywhere. I asked him if he requires people to wash their hands, because during COVID and the bird flu thing that came through back years ago,

10:02
the fares were real hesitant to let people come in and pet the animals. So do you require people to wash their hands or anything? I have hand sanitizer for people to use if they want. I mean, knock on wood, I haven't experienced any disease yet and all of my animals are fully vaccinated. One of the big things too is when we show up to places where they have other animals they didn't tell us about, I'm very clear that we need to be far away from them.

10:29
They don't know what our animals have been through. We don't know what their animals have been through So I try to steer as clear away from that as possible and because we do a lot of stuff in the cities most of the City people they don't have goats or chickens at home, you know, yeah, but so I have the hand sanitizer It's a little too difficult for me to lug around a hand washing kind of station But yeah, I mean knock on wood Sophie haven't had any disease incidents

10:57
Yeah, it's amazing to me how risky it is to bring a new animal onto your farm or into your property. Oh my gosh, yeah. We have to be so picky now. Some of our first animals were rescues. You know, you don't know what their background is like or where they've been. And now, you know, as much as we love to rescue, we just can't really do that anymore, especially with like our goats and our sheep, because we need to know that they came from like a tested herd or a closed herd to make sure that we don't bring anything into our own herd.

11:28
Absolutely. We were really stupid and really lucky a couple of years ago. We had chickens already at our place and we went and got like, I don't know, 10 more bullets. And I didn't even think about the fact that we should have kept them separate for like a week. And so we basically let them in with the other chickens right away and everybody got along. And then I was doing some research, obviously, because I'm...

11:56
about this homesteading thing. And then I started doing the podcast and people are mentioning all the time that they tend to keep new animals in isolation for a little bit. We could have killed the chickens that we already had and had no idea why they died, you know, by doing that. So we're actually going to be culling our flock here soon because they're lazy and they're not giving eggs and they're old.

12:22
Yeah. And they're going to make excellent chicken stock and then we're going to get new chickens next spring. And so when we get new chickens, I think we're just going to get as many as we think we need and call it good for a while. And that way we don't have to worry about introducing any new guys to the group. Yeah, that's a good plan. It is so stressful to introduce new animals. Yeah. And chickens are crazy. They either love each other immediately or they fight. Yeah. Right. And then if there's like even just a little bit of blood on one of the other chickens, they really go for it.

12:52
Yeah, they're destructive little dinosaurs is what they are. They are. I'm not a fan. I don't love chickens. I love the eggs that I get from them, but I just don't love chickens. And it's fine. I don't have to love them because they're not really cuddly anyway. It's not a big deal. Right. Exactly. Okay. So do you have, I mean, I hate to make you pick favorites, but if you can, do you have a favorite event that you've been involved in so far?

13:21
Oh, that's a good question. There are so many that I love. I think one of my favorites is Little Canada's Canadian Days. It's a city in the Twin Cities. And we've been there for three years. So since we started, they've had us, which just makes my heart happy that they keep having us back. I just love the people in that community. It's always a really fun event. And the lady, her name is Sue, who organizes it for us.

13:49
It's just so sweet and so accommodating. She always has the nicest area for the animals, but I really love that one. I love the people in that community. They're always just really excited to see the animals and really grateful. Awesome. Do you have a funniest story about any of the events that you've been at? Um.

14:12
Hmm. It's gotta be something. Kids can say the funniest things, you know, I've definitely got some funny quotes from kids. I had one of my goats, his name is Snoopy and you know, he's a boy goat, but they still have their little udders and this little boy kneeled down behind him and pointed up and he whispered to his friend. He was like, he's got two weenies.

14:40
One of the funniest things I've heard from kids, but I can't think of a specific event that was really funny. I think a lot of like the child cares that we go to just, they make me giggle just from the things that the kids say and how excited they are. Yeah, I love kids. I love kids from like, okay, my favorite age for kids is

15:03
newborn to six months because they're snugly and they're not mobile yet. That's my preference. I love it when they're all snugly and they smell like brand new babies and you get to hold them all the time. I don't want any, I, Lord knows I don't want any more. I'm 54. I've raised four. I'm good, but I love babies. But I think my favorite age is probably from about four to about eight when they're still small and still pretty brand new to the world and they're still absorbing everything.

15:32
And they have no online editor. Whatever they're thinking is going to come out of their mouth. I think. Yeah, exactly. I love some of the older kids too, you know, from like six to 10. I love how chatty they are. They always have so many questions for me about the animals. I did an event last week that was just these boys sat with me with one of those and were asking me just everything about how his horns work, why he's chewing his cud, all this stuff. They were asking about his hooves. And when it was time for them to go, one of the boys looked up at me and he was

16:02
next time you come I want to talk about the sheep and it was just so cute they just love to learn and they're so curious I just love that. They're sponges they soak up everything if if they're asking questions answer them because it'll stick with them forever. Um okay I do have a question about why goats chew their cuds and I have another question about the regulations for all this so let's start with why goats chew their cud because I've talked to a lot of people about goats lately but that has not come up.

16:32
Yeah, well, you know, the kids are always curious when they see them laying down and chewing, they're like, what are they eating? And I just always explain to them that it's their cud that they have a ruminant digestive system like a cow and the sheep have that to my alpaca as well. And so when the food moves into the first chamber, it sits there for a little bit and then they regurgitate it back up into their mouth and they chew it a second time and blow it and it moves it to the second chamber, eventually the third and the fourth and it moves throughout their whole system. But I love telling that to the kids and I'll tell them, you know,

17:02
Especially my alpaca after he's finished swallowing one bite of his cut I'm like, okay now watch his neck and you see as he's regurgitating because he's got such that long neck You can see it moving all the way up through his neck until it comes up into his cheek And they just think that is so cool, you know, cuz they most of them never heard about anything like that before Yeah, I thought it was something to do with how their digestive system works But I just hadn't ever ever talked about it on the podcast and that seems like a cool thing to know

17:29
Um, yeah, so so so ruminants have built in chewing gum basically exactly Although let me tell you it doesn't smell as good. Oh, no. No, no, no, it's disgusting I've I've had the not pleasure of of having that experience of smelling it. It's not great um, okay, so It's not like just anybody can go out and get a couple goats and couple sheep and some rabbits and some ducks and whatever and

17:57
just be like, hey, we have these critters, can we bring them to your party and get paid for it? I know there's regulations and there's all kinds of stuff that has to happen to make this work. So without being nosy, what kind of regulations do you have to meet to be able to do this? Yeah, so to start it, I mean, we had to first just be registered as limited liability company is what we are. And so we had to go through that.

18:22
whole process and then our insurance agent is just the best ever. And so he helps us with all that kind of side of it. Uh, but to do the actual events, a lot of cities require permits. And I always tell my, um, the people who are hiring me that this is up to them to look into. I'm not the one applying for the permit. They're applying for the permit and I'll just give them any information they need. They usually require vaccine records. Um, and they need a rabies certificates.

18:50
and the stuff that I always have on hand for them. But that's the biggest one is that a lot of cities require permits. But other than that, I do not need a USDA license. My type of petting zoo does not require that. I think if you, I might be wrong on this, but I think if you have people coming to you, you might need that. But since I just do the traveling stuff, I haven't needed to apply for that. And so unless that changes, I don't need that part of it.

19:19
The biggest thing is just the permits for us. Okay, cool. And then the other question regarding insurance. God forbid something goes wrong, someone gets hurt or your animals get hurt. Is it the person that is hiring you to bring your animals to the place that is hit with the insurance claim or is it you or is it both?

19:46
You know, I haven't encountered that situation yet. Thank goodness. Yeah. But I think it will depend on the kind of events too, because me going to a daycare is a lot different than if I'm going to a huge city event where I'm interacting with the public. Yeah. So I think that would kind of make sense. But I think that both of us would really have to work on that together. A lot of the schools that I work for, they always have contracts for me. They're pretty much the only ones that ever get contracts to me.

20:15
where we're working out those kind of details if something happened, you know, like my insurance would kick in and we would take care of that. So I think generally it would come to me and my insurance guy. But luckily we haven't had to deal with that yet. Yeah, there's just there's so many rules and regulations for businesses that I'm always curious to see what's involved in something like yours versus something like us with our

20:45
produce from. And we had to change, well, we didn't have to. We were gently persuaded by our awesome insurance guy to switch to farm insurance instead of homeowners insurance because it covers different things and it also covers the home under that policy. So for anybody listening and looking to get into a business, always, always, always talk to your insurance person about what you're doing.

21:15
what needs to happen with insurance because it is not a great feeling to have something happen and realize that you are not covered Right. Oh man. I owe my insurance guy so much. He he knows what he's doing and that's the important thing Absolutely Don't don't ever stick with the same insurance person either if you don't get along and you don't see eye-to-eye with your your insurance company

21:41
You don't have to stick with them. Find someone that you actually like and click with because it makes it so much easier. Absolutely. And I mean, everybody can do how they wanna do it, but we just found that the person that we dealt with was great about explaining things in not legalese, but in layman's terms so that it was just easier to understand what the policy covered. Yep.

22:12
Because Wiggly's is a lot of double-speak. It's a lot of words that you may not be familiar with. There's some Latin in there. And if you're not a word nerd, you may not understand what's being put in front of you. A lot of that just goes right over my head. Yeah, yeah. If you're not in the business, you aren't necessarily going to understand everything that you're handed at an insurance meeting. So, and it's not because we're stupid. It's just that that's not our specialty. Exactly.

22:41
So yeah, it's important. And limited liability company or corporation for anybody who doesn't know, that's what LLC stands for. When you hear a company name with LLC at the end, that's what that LLC stands for.

22:57
So, okay, let me think. I don't know what else to ask you. Like I'm out of my depth here. Uh, yeah, I'm stuck. Is there anything else you would like to talk about or share? Um,

23:18
No, I mean, all of my animals, they live on our family farm. It's about 10 acres. And we have like 52 animals now, but that's including chickens and all that stuff. Yeah. But yeah, 10 acres works really well for us. We have full-sized horses that take up like four or five of the acres, and then a couple acres for the little animals. But yeah, it's a lot of fun. I love doing the traveling stuff. I would very dip into the...

23:46
having people come to our farm territory. I'm not interested in that. That seems like a ton more work. And more liability, yep. Exactly, and my parents live there, you know, so that wouldn't be, I love doing the traveling stuff and it's been lucrative for us, so very blessed. Awesome, I do have a question. I just thought of while you were talking. Do you guys have merchandise? Do you have like t-shirts or hats or, I don't know, magnets or whatever?

24:16
Yeah, we have coloring books. And my mom actually, she has a boutique in town. And so she also makes like sweatshirts and t shirts with those machines that can do that stuff. And so she makes our little blues merch for us. And so we do get that to people sometimes too, which is a lot of fun. It's fun to see people wear the little blues merch. Yeah.

24:43
Yeah, we don't like we're not actively like putting that stuff out there. Um, maybe one day we will, but when people ask, we make them some stuff. Oh, okay. All right. And, um, the trailer or trailers that you transport the animals in, do you have a logo or are they fancy painted trailers? So people know what's being, who's being moved. The trailer, not, but one of our trucks has a wrap on it with

25:11
It says Little Blues Traveling Zoo. It is gorgeous with cutouts of the animals and it's super fun. I love it We'd love to get a wrap for the truck But the second truck is a bit older and we're hoping to upgrade in the next couple years And so when we upgrade we'll do the wrap on the new one as well So when you're driving down the road do people honk at you if you're driving the one with the wrap?

25:36
I get a lot of stares. I get a lot of looks, a lot of excited kids in the back seat of cars looking. And then a lot of people also recognize me or they know that my dad and so they'll see the business and know that's what he does. So they'll wave at me as they're driving by. So that's really fun. I love that. Do you feel like a minor celebrity in your area? Sometimes I do. Yeah.

26:03
I bet little kids you see the truck that has the logo and stuff on it. I bet they're like, what is that? Is that an ice cream truck? I love when we pull up to an event and there's already kids around and they're just like, it's the petting zoo! Yeah, kids love animals. I mean I have met maybe two kids in my whole life who were skittish around animals and once they realized that they were okay, they were great with it. My neighbor who

26:33
lived across the street from us back when we lived in Jordan, Minnesota. She had a little girl and I think it was the youngest one. And we had cats and she came over with her kids and the littlest one started crying as soon as she saw the cat. And I was like, oh no, no, it's okay. And the lady who lived across the street, she was like, she's really afraid of cats.

27:01
I said, why? And she said, I have no idea. She said, none of the kids really like cats, but the youngest one nod into it. And I think she finally, the youngest finally did get brave enough to pet one of the cats, but you could just tell she was like, I don't like this at all. So she's the only, she's the only kid I've ever met who was that anxious about a cat.

27:27
Yeah, you know, some of them are just so nervous and sometimes at events there's kids who are they're too afraid they don't want to come in the pen they're really anxious about it. But after sitting outside the pen because they'll just sit out there and look at the animals, you know, five minutes they start to get more interested and more brave. And then my favorite is seeing kids like that come into the pen and just like blossom. They just get so excited and they get more comfortable. They're not nervous of the animals anymore.

27:54
a lot of times they'll choose like one animal to be like a favorite and they'll just stick by that animal. And it just makes me so happy to share them with kids who don't get to see these kinds of creatures very much and watch them become more comfortable and not as scared. Yeah. I can't imagine life without some kind of pet or...

28:18
Or a livestock animal, I mean we don't really have livestock animals. We have barn cats and chickens That's about as far as we go with livestock But but growing up we always had a cat or a dog or both I mean, I don't remember a time when we didn't have a pet and The idea of not having a pet if you're a family with kids is just foreign to me. I don't get it. Mm-hmm Well, I think animals and having pets could teach a lot to children about responsibility and empathy

28:48
All that good stuff, respect.

28:52
Yeah, I mean, their pets are in your care. And if you're part of a family that has pets, I feel like everyone in the family should be involved in the care of that animal. And I don't care if it's a toddler, toddlers can get a kibble for the cats or the dog or whatever. And they love to do it. I had a job when I was younger as a camp counselor for a farm camp.

29:22
one of the things the kids would do is help feed the animals and give the animal the water. And the little toddlers would do it and they just love it. They love that responsibility and like knowing that they're like taking care of something. No. Yes. I love it when two-year-olds say, I do it. Yes. It's one of my favorite things ever. And then they say, no, I don't want to do it by the time they hit 13, 14. So. Exactly.

29:49
What happened to the excitement and the grin and the smile and the I do it part? That was great. Bring that back. Well, Irene, I really love the idea of what you're doing. And if I had small children, I would maybe entertain the idea of having you guys bring your critters to my place for a birthday party, but I don't have small children anymore, so I have grown up now. Maybe we'll see you at a public event.

30:16
Could be, never know. Stranger things have happened. I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me though, Irene, all joking aside, this has been great. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for having me, Mary. It's been fun. All right. Have a great day. You too.