Folly Farm Adventure Park and Zoo facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Folly Farm Adventure Park and Zoo

Lemur island at Folly Farm
Date opened	17 July 1988
Location	Pembrokeshire, Wales
Coordinates	51°44′36″N 4°43′49″W / 51.743329°N 4.730273°W / 51.743329; -4.730273
No. of animals	700+
No. of species	200+
Annual visitors	50,0000
Website	https://www.folly-farm.co.uk

The Folly Farm Adventure Park and Zoo, often called Folly Farm, is a popular place to visit in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It's located near Saundersfoot and Tenby. About 500,000 people visit Folly Farm every year.

It started as a simple farm attraction. Now, it has much more! You can find an indoor vintage funfair, a zoo with over 200 different kinds of animals, and big indoor and outdoor play areas.

The original farm area is still a big part of the park. It includes a large undercover area called the Jolly Barn. Here, you can see horses, goats, sheep, pigs, and smaller animals you can pet. Folly Farm is split into four main parts: a farmyard, a zoo, an indoor vintage funfair (with a cool Wurlitzer organ), and adventure play zones.

You can join "meet-and-greet" sessions with animals every day. Sometimes, visitors can even try hand-milking goats! The park has grown to include more outdoor areas across the A478 road. A tractor-driven land-train takes you on a tour of these outdoor paddocks.

In 2013, Folly Farm opened Penguin Coast. This is a modern home for 24 Humboldt penguins. In 2014, they opened Pride of Pembrokeshire, which houses six African lions. A year later, in 2015, Kifaru Reserve was built. This is a special breeding area for eastern black rhinos. This helps protect these animals as part of European breeding programs. In 2020, Folly Farm welcomed 12 Macaroni penguins. They needed a new home after their old zoo closed. Folly Farm is now the only place in the UK with this vulnerable type of penguin.

Folly Farm is run by the Williams and Ebsworth families. It employs about 90 full-time staff and 100 seasonal workers.

History of Folly Farm

Folly Farm began as a dairy farm. The farmer, Glyndŵr Williams, and his wife Anne noticed families stopping to watch their cows. They decided to open their farm to visitors. In 1988, the dairy farm became a tourist spot. Guests could visit the cows and watch them being milked.

Over the years, Folly Farm has grown a lot. They kept investing money back into the park. The first zoo animals arrived in 2002. Folly Farm has won many awards. It was named the Best Day Out in Wales by the Wales Tourist Board in 2005, 2010, and 2015. In 2009, it won Pembrokeshire Tourism's Best Family Day Out award. In 2017, Tripadvisor even named Folly Farm the 10th best zoo in the world!

Folly Farm's giraffe

The founder, Glyndŵr Williams, was born in 1944. He moved to Folly Farm when he was two years old. He passed away in February 2020 after a long illness.

Amazing Animals at the Zoo

The zoo at Folly Farm is home to many different animals. Here are some of them:

Conservation Projects

Folly Farm is part of important groups like the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) and the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA). They work together with other zoos to help protect endangered animals.

One of their key projects is a European breeding program for eastern black rhinos. These rhinos are listed as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List. This means they are at a very high risk of disappearing from the wild. By helping them breed, Folly Farm plays a big role in saving these amazing animals.