Jan Marchezak’s animals are well traveled.

Since 1981, she and the Marchezak family farm have run the Barnyard Petting Zoo, a for-hire traveling petting zoo that offers a host of different creatures to county fairs, birthday parties, church socials and school events.

The animals have even appeared on television shows like “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and in movies like “Foxcatcher.”

But as the family was preparing for the 39th season in business, the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

In two shakes of a lamb’s tail, a full slate of booked events was canceled, taking with it a major source of income for the farm.

Animals can’t be turned off like a light switch, as Ms. Marchezak’s son Jeremy put it. More than 700 critters on the farm still needed to eat — 5,000-8,000 bales of hay per year, in addition to grain and milk — but the petting zoo was bringing in 10-20 times less than what it normally would.

To keep the business afloat, the family decided to do something they had never done in 39 years: Since they couldn’t bring the animals to the people, why not have the people come to the animals?

The Barnyard Petting Zoo’s home base in Eighty Four, Washington County, is open to the public for tours of the barns and to meet the hundreds of friendly animals living inside.

Tours are $150 for groups of up to 10 people with $15 charged per additional visitor.

“These are my babies,” Ms. Marchezak said while stroking a miniature horse named Scooter inside the baby animals barn. It’s the first stop on the tour and was hosting about a dozen visitors of all ages last Thursday afternoon.

The guests seemed delighted to feed the baby goats, pigs, donkeys, camels and other animals inside the barn.

Adults and children alike refilled baby bottles with powdered milk from a cooler to offer to the critters, which climbed over each other to get their lunch.

“Where else can you go where the animals are so nice, where the people are so nice,” said Taylor Piatt, 15, of Canonsburg, while feeding a pair of piglets with a bottle. Her visit Thursday was her third time at the farm.

“I love the baby goats; every time I come there’s one goat that follows me around,” Taylor said.

The baby critters have pens to sit in, but visitors quickly mingle with donkeys and goats out for a walk, as well as the Marchezaks’ 20 friendly dogs. It isn’t unusual for a curious creature to sneak up on a person to say hello.

After the baby animals barn, visitors are taken through an adult animals barn, a barn for piglets and show pigs, and a back area where the Marchezaks raise puppies.

“I wish my kids listened like my dogs do,” Ms. Marchezak said.

The secret to a successful petting zoo

Training animals to be gentle around visitors doesn’t happen overnight, Ms. Marchezak said, adding that it starts from the moment they enter the world by feeding them from a bottle. 

“If we didn’t bottle-feed babies, you wouldn’t get near here,” she said. “They then associate with people and groups.”

Ms. Marchezak demonstrated the difference bottle-feeding makes after the group of visitors made it to the adult animals barn.

She pointed out two pairs of African wildebeests. One pair, named Wilma and Betty, stood side by side in a pen near the rest of the animals, while the other pair stood some distance away behind a fence in a field outside the barn.

Wilma and Betty were bottle-fed, Ms. Marchezak explained, and she was able to get close to them. The animals in the field, however, were raised by the mother wildebeest. She then lifted a large metal shield and explained how it was necessary for protection.

“They are leery of people,” she said. If the farm needed to move the wild wildebeests, they would have to be sedated. “In order to do anything we have to dart them. They’d put their horns right through you.”

“They’re just good weed wackers,” Jeremy added.

The results of the bottle-feeding last a lifetime. Romeo, a 1,400-pound bull camel standing in a pen down from the wildebeests, was bottle-fed as a baby. Now 6 years old, he readily greeted visitors up close and personally. He liked to sniff people’s breath.

“I’ve kissed this sucker more times than I’ve kissed my husband,” Ms. Marchezak joked.

The secret of bottle-feeding animals is something Ms. Marchezak learned growing up on a dairy farm. She later started showing cows at state and county fairs and became deeply involved with the Washington County Fair.

Ms. Marchezak hosted a small petting zoo with donkeys, goats and other farm animals at the fair — her first-ever petting zoo — and the idea stuck. “From there, it took on a life of its own,” she said.

In time, Ms. Marchezak’s children became involved with the Barnyard Petting Zoo. Jeremy, her youngest, was busy at work last Thursday keeping the operation running just as he had since he was born.

“I know no difference — the minute you open your eyes, you’re in the barn until you crash,” he said. “I love it.”

Jeremy’s wife, Mindy, and his sons, 12-year-old Owen and 15-year-old Max, also were on hand making sure everything was running smoothly. No one had a specific job — if something had to be done, everyone made sure it got done.

“Everyone does a little bit of everything,” Mindy said.

Walk on the wild side

Just down the road from the Barnyard Petting Zoo is the Wild World of Animals, run by Ms. Marchezak’s daughter, Jamie, and her son-in-law, Grant Kemmerer.

The 10-acre farm is like a page out of “The Jungle Book.” Guests were greeted by the sounds of a kookaburra, of howling wolves and of hooting lemurs housed in habitats made from recycled corn bins.

Mr. Kemmerer, who is originally from Miami, has long had an interest in all types of animals. In addition to the Wild World of Animals, he is an avid beekeeper and falconer.

“If it’s a living thing, I want to learn about it,” he said while leading visitors past a baboon exhibit to his badger habitat (“the nastiest animal you ever want to be around,” Ms. Marchezak remarked).

About 60% of the animals at the Wild World of Animals are there for entertainment.The other 40% are wild animals that have been injured or orphaned or were unable to live in a group. Mr. Kemmerer helps to give them a home and to rehabilitate them.

“In a captive setting, you have to keep an eye on them,” he said.

He also rents animals to be used in movies and television, such as in director Seth Rogen’s upcoming movie “An American Pickle.”

Like the Barnyard Petting Zoo, Wild World of Animals was devastated financially by the COVID-19 pandemic. Normally, Mr. Kemmerer charges about $500 per booking, which gets an event 13 animals for entertainment.

With that income gone, Mr. Kemmerer said the business is “bleeding profusely.” He spends about $100,000 per year on food alone for his animals.

Labor is expensive too; he and Jamie have recently worked 16-hour days, seven days a week, to keep the animals fed and cared for.

To make up the difference, Mr. Kemmerer also began offering tours for the first time this season. “We never would have done it before,” he said. 

The tours are listed at $175 per group. It’s not the same income as pre-COVID, but it will “slow the bleeding” as Mr. Kemmerer put it.

Guests on tour can get much closer to the animals than if they were at a zoo, but they still remain a safe distance away at about 5 feet from the habitats. 

“Our animals come right up to us. At a zoo, the tiger is asleep behind something,” Mr. Kemmerer said.

Wild World of Animals’ tiger, a 10-year-old Bengal named Gus, was feet away from visitors behind a sturdy chain-link fence as Mr. Kemmerer fed it a chicken drumstick.

The crowd stood in amazement as the big cat crunched its treat loudly. Gus, too, was bottle-fed as a cub and “chuffed” Mr. Kemmerer at the fence, the tiger equivalent of purring. 

Above all, both Ms. Marchezak and Mr. Kemmerer emphasized the care that they put into their animals.

Both the Barnyard Petting Zoo and Wild World of Animals are fully licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the state Fish and Game Commission. Mr. Kemmerer has additional licenses for his falcons.

Barnyard Petting Zoo is located at 15 Short Cut Road in Eighty Four, Washington County. Tours may be booked at barnyardpettingzoo.com or by calling 724-239-4004.

Tours at Wild World of Animals may be booked by calling 724-239-5511. Visit wildworldofanimals.org for more details.

First Published: July 23, 2020, 10:00 a.m.