days out, tried and tested
The kinderboerderij is one of the quiet pleasures of raising children in the Netherlands: a small farm with goats, chickens, a couple of pigs and a handful of rabbits, tucked into a park and usually costing nothing. Eighteen are listed here. Ten are in Amsterdam — De Buiktuin, City Farm Osdorp, Zimmerhoeve, De Uylenburg and the Westerpark farm among them — two are in Diemen, and the rest are spread through Haarlem, Haarlemmerliede, Beverwijk, Assendelft, Spanbroek and Lutjebroek. Five are free, fourteen are wheelchair and buggy friendly, and several also host birthday parties.
19 farms & petting zoos in the Netherlands
Every town with something in this category has its own page. The number is what is listed there today.
Mostly, yes. Five of the eighteen listed here are explicitly free to enter, and the municipal children's farms found in parks across the Netherlands generally charge nothing at all — a donation box by the gate is the usual arrangement. Care farms and the zoo-style attractions are the ones that charge. Each listing says which.
Fourteen of the eighteen are tagged wheelchair accessible, which in practice means flat paths a buggy can handle. The city farms in Amsterdam — Westerpark, Osdorp, De Buiktuin — and the IJburg farm in Diemen are built into level park land. The working farms further out, in Spanbroek or Lutjebroek, can be gravel and mud, so wellingtons rather than wheels.
Usually only with food bought or provided on site, and often only the goats. Dutch kinderboerderijen are strict about this — the animals are on managed diets and bread makes them ill. Most sell a small bag of pellets at the entrance. Several of the farms here also run birthday parties and school visits where feeding is part of the programme.
