Get hands on with the critters at the Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch!

 

School is out for summer, which means it is time for summer trips, swimming and more! If you are going to be near the Tucson, Arizona area there is a fantastic destination that offers fun for the whole family. What place am I talking about? I am talking about the Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch (Located at 17599 E Peak Ln. Piacho, AZ 85141. My family and I stopped to visit it on our way home from a trip to the Kartchner Caverns State Park. We enjoyed it so much that I wanted to tell all of you about it. 

I've driven past it before on my way to Tucson, but never stopped so while we were down in the area I looked into everything they offered. Once I saw you were able to hand feed and interact with a number of different animals, I knew it was something we needed to stop and do with the kids. At the door they have two different options, option #1 is $12 which comes with food for all of the animals except for the stingrays and option #2 is $15 which includes food for everything. We went with options #2, they provide you all of the food at once expect for the stingray food as it is pieces of what looks like squid that needs to be kept cold so they give you a coin to trade in at the end when you reach the stingrays. You can purchase additional food if you'd like.

There are several different areas where you can feed a number of animals, and many of them will let you pet them as well! Our kids have a blast and so did we, we all had different areas we loved so we ended up hanging around some of the areas a little longer than others. They have deer, rainbow lorikeets, goats, a ton of ostrich and more. 

While many of the animals were fun to feed my absolute favorite was feeing the Rainbow Lorikeets, you are able to go inside of the enclosure with them. Once inside you just hold the food in your hand and they will come over to sit on your arm/hand and will open the container themselves and start eating. I loved it so much, we ended up buying extra food cups and staying in there a bit. Feeding the stingrays is also an exciting and memorable experience, it feels so funny having them come up and eat out of the palm of your hands. They have no teeth so it is just a light suction that sucks up the bit of food from in between your fingers. 

My kids really enjoyed feeding and petting all of the bunnies, there are so many of them and they are completely unafraid of humans. I was impressed that not one of them tried to bite or get aggressive with us while we were feeding them. All of the animals were fun to feed in their own way and the ranch spices things up by giving you different ways to feed them such as a delivery system for the goats, a goat kissing wall and more. It was fun hand feeding all of the animals - aside from the Ostrich, they have a special cup you pour it in. Although I am not going to lie, it freaked me out feeding the ducks, they have a sign showing how to feed them next to their swimming area. You make an open fist  leaving a round opening between your thumb and pointer with the food inside of your palm, so they can put their break into the opening and eat. I was worried they would nip on the soft skin near my thumb on accident or that their hard beaks would hurt, my husband actually had to help hold me hand because I was nervous hahaha. Everything turned out just fine, didn't hurt at all.

They also have a gift shop, and a shooting gallery where the kids can have some fun. You can also use their pressing machine to make a souvenir pressed penny to take home, it was open during the time we were there but they also have monster truck tours. We thankfully went on a day when there were not a bunch of people so we were able to take our time and really enjoy the experience. In total we were there for about two hours altogether and we can't wait to go back again, it was well worth the money spent to feed the animals. 

I will be sharing some photos and videos from the ranch including showing how some of the animals are fed over on my blog Instagram page and Photography Instagram page, so stop by and check them out! I will be putting different photos and videos on each through the next week.