About Us and Our Animals

Westland Ranch is proudly located right outside of Fort Worth, Texas. We were originally a wildlife rehabilitation center, until we started attending different events with our children, and noticed there was a need for a top quality animal service provider in our area. Westland Ranch started out as a small company that specialized only in birthday parties serving 10-15 children at a time in 2002. Since then, we've expanded our services to service thousands of patrons at any given time with our exotic petting zoo, six ring pony carousels and our trackless train, The Westland Express. Although we've grown, our customer service is still as personal as it was when we initially started. We only hire staff that are knowledgable about our animals care and needs, children friendly, and we always have an adult representing our company. We are very particular about our animal’s care, and do not allow ANYONE to mistreat the animals we use in our business. We feel like our petting zoo goes above and beyond any in our area. We really enjoy our animals, and want to share that enjoyment with others! We love children, and nothing makes us happier than to watch a child’s face light up as he or she see’s a baby goat up close for the first time!

Our Animals

All of our animals are well cared for and loved throughout the year. Many have been hand-raised by us as babies. We try to offer the most colorful, beautiful, and unique animals that we can, and sometimes travel for hours and out of state to pick up that unique animal that we think will do well in our petting zoo. We are very selective on the animals we bring into our ranch, basing our choices on each animal’s temperament and disposition. If an animal does not meet our criteria, we do not use them for our petting zoo or our pony rides. Each child’s safety is our main concern! We also care about our animal’s safety, and do not allow any child to chase or pick up any of our animals. The majority of our animals are extremely tame, and will allow anyone to pet them, including our chickens!!!

We have a unique variety of animals that we use, from our pesky wabbits to our wandering wallabies, we’re sure we’ll have what you need to make your event that much more memorable! We bring a minimum of ten to fifty animals, depending on which package you order, and also on the time of the year! Some of our animals are not brought during certain times of the year, if heat is a factor. We feel strongly against bringing baby chicks or ducklings for children to hold to our petting zoos, for obvious reasons, but will bring them as a display item only (when available). Please ask ahead for when your event is scheduled, and we’ll be more than happy to give you a guaranteed listing of what we’ll be bringing for that time of the year! When needed, we bring frozen water bottles and fans for the comfort and safety of our animals.

The variety of small animals which are provided in our small petting zoo may include: Nigerian Dwarf Goats, Miatonic (fainting) Goats, African Pygmy Goats, Japanese Silky Chickens, Black White Crested Polish Chickens, Flemish Fleur Bantam Chickens, English Crested Ducks, and various breeds of bunnies. All or our rabbits are rescued rabbits from a local rescue rabbit facility. Please see their link on our page. We do try to bring baby animals whenever possible, but it depends on the time of year, and we cannot guarantee it.

Our animals brought for our larger petting zoos may include: South American Llama, Peruvian Alpaca, African Miniature Zebu calf, Scottish Highlander miniature calf, and a miniature pony. We also offer a New Zealand Bennett’s Wallaby joey, amongst others, at an optional charge. Let us know ahead of time what type of theme you are having, and we'll work with you on what special animals we can bring!

The ponies we use have exceptional personalities and dispositions. We try to have available the most beautiful, flashy ponies in the metroplex, to make your special occasion the best it can be! We also have several sized ponies available to accommodate all sizes of children from five pound babies to seventy five pound babies! Our ponies are healthy and vaccinated, and we pamper them throughout the week, to insure their happiness and comfort when they are not working. Veterarians agree that ponies that "work" are much more healthy than ponies who are in a pasture all day and are allowed to become overweight, with no exercise. We are very careful with are ponies and have strict standards in place at our events to insure that they are not overworked. They are also offered water hourly on any job that is over two hours long.

We also offer animals for rental for your special occasions such as donkeys, goats, chickens, etc. for live nativity scenes and animals for special themes, i.e. African theme would include our African Zebu miniature cow, African pygmy goat, Nigerian Dwarf Goat, etc. Please call or email to discuss pricing for these special occasions.