Summerfield Zoo is a bit of an anomaly when it comes to zoos. It's located amid a vast stretch of cropland, and its location/entry point aren't indictive of an attraction. To be frank, it looks like you're going to someone's farmhouse. There is very little parking, so you know the place doesn't cater to many people at any given time. The animal enclosures border on basic - no frills here. Underneath all of these quirks is a well-run small zoo. There are enough animals to amuse most young kids and a sizable percentage of parents/adults. Some of these animals are par for the course (goats, camels) but others are zoo elites (hyenas, wolves). I's a great place to spend an hour or so, followed by a ten minute trip to Belvidere for lunch or snacks. I think the most important aspect is that despite some of the negative comments posted in the past, the animals are all heathy and in great shape. Perhaps I ought to defer to all of the animal behaviorists and psychologists who have shared their prognoses on Yelp - there are quite a lot of them it seems - but I do not believe the animals here are "depressed" at all. There is quite a lot of anthropomorphizing going on and it's unfair to the proprietors of this facility. All this place needs is some jazzing up of their facility, if only at the entrance, to offer some "character', as it is pretty devoid of that at the moment. Hopefully with some more funding that will happen down the road. Most importantly, it's a fun place to visit some healthy animals and that's really all that matters. read more

The animals are very cute, it's been a while since I've been and I'm not quite sure what they have there anymore

I was really disgusted. The price is expensive for what the zoo is, not worth it. Almost every animal had pace marks which is a sign of zoochosis. Zoochosis happens when an animal is extremely unhappy and doesn't have enough space or enrichment. Every enclosure was very small as well. I will say that i was there for the small animal feeding time and it seems like they had been eating good food which was nice. The baby goats were very fun though! They were so cute but overpopulated for their enclosure. I do NOT recommend this zoo whatsoever go somewhere else for your baby goat needs. read more

Dirty unkempt zoo. animals look so bored and sad. there were two white wolves in overgrown grass with their ears full of flies and one was whimpering. snack shop was lame , nothing much to eat but candy or cheese nachos. i had heard this place was beautiful once. it is not now. I wish I didn't see these conditions. the animals can't speak but there faces did read more

I mean.... I don't know what I expected from a family run zoo in the middle of the country, but I think I got what seems realistic. Unfortunately, that also made it sad and disturbing. I wanted to take my daughter to a zoo that was close by but also wasn't huge. She has special needs, and she can get overwhelmed in big spaces with potentially a lot of stimulation. I thought this might be a good compromise for us. We drove in and I realized that this was less of a zoo and more of someone's personal collection of wild animals. I couldn't tell her no though because we were already there. I pulled in and walked to the shed at the front gate. A young girl greeted us and asked us if we wanted to pay extra to feed the baby goats a bottle and the adult goats some feed. Why not. We are here. Grand total for myself and my 10 year old was $27. I was a little surprised by the cost but okay. Maybe they are doing great conservation work here and I just haven't seen it yet. We walked around and saw sad, distressed animal after sad, distressed animal. It was hot and while the animals could go into enclosures they were out. The field where the wolves were kept was larger but it had no trees, no landscape, nothing. Just grass. With it being so hot I didn't know where they would hide for cover. We never saw them though. We continued to look around the "zoo" and saw a hyena that would barely raise its head in its small enclosure. A mountain lion that paced. Some monkeys being kept in a space about the size of my closet. Kangaroos with nowhere to jump. The saddest thing to me by far were the horses, which seems odd, because of all the creatures on this property - they seemed to logically have the best chance of being taken care of well. It's a farm essentially. These horses look stressed. I admit I'm not an equestrian expert but sometimes it feels like an animal is communicating their status in their eyes. Again, this isn't scientific, but now even several days later, I'm still thinking about how those horses looked at me. I was so sad for them. My daughter attempted to feed a goat with a bottle and was instantly overwhelmed. About 20 baby goats rushed her and began jumping and nipping her to get the bottle. I took it and moved my really scared child to the exit. She went to feed the adult goats through the gate. They all seemed to know the routine and rushed to the gate to push their noses through. I let her toss the food in gently so they could get it. The entire place took us about 35 minutes to cover, and I left feeling like I had donated to a Tiger King-esq situation. It wasn't a good feeling at all. I didn't feel like these people were doing the animals any favors by holding them there. I won't tell you what to do as you read this review - but I wish I had not seen it. Even my daughter who remembered one of the horses names asked me later if the horse was sick. I had not said anything to her about this and attempted to make the best time for her. It bothered her as well on some level... and she's 10. read more

Lots a space and plenty of animals not only see, you can also pet them. Had the once in a lifetime opportunity to hold and pet a wolf pup that was 3 months old. Bucket list for sure. Hidden Gem! read more

Summerfield Zoo - 3 month old wolf pupp. - Zoos Near Me - Belvidere, Illinois

LOVE the zoo! Only wish they had bathrooms that are not port-a-potties. Especially for the price it is to get in. Other than that, great experience. Very clean too read more

this is a roadside zoo. drive an hour for a nicer one with better animal care that is free.

Kids enjoyed it. Great place to get some walking done. Animals I did not expect to see read more

Giving this a 5 star rating. Not because it was the biggest zoo with the most exotic animals or because it has the most visitors. Giving it a 5 star rating because we had fun! Let's start from the beginning. It is $10 for adults to enter, $5 for children. You can buy a pack of 12 tickets for $10 for the petting zoo and to bottle feed baby goats. I would plan on maybe 1-1/2 hours or so maybe less to see everything. The habitats are not fancy at all. There are basically cages or stalls and some homemade looking back drops. Here is a rundown of some of the animals we saw: guinea hens (just running around the place), emu, lemurs, horses, goats, wallabies, peacocks, rabbits, camels, reindeer, river otters, swans, zebra, ostriches, wolves, arctic fox, macaws, Patagonian mara, donkey, hyena, pot-bellied pigs. I'm sure I'm missing a few. For a little place, there are quite a few animals. I guess they have some shows and you can pay to have your picture taken with a wolf pup after. You can also pay to buy tickets for the petting zoo. If you are thinking there is an actual petting zoo, there isn't. It's just to get food to feed the crazy little goats. They are behind a small fence and you can feed them. That is the petting zoo. Nothing else just hand feeding goats. You can also buy tickets to bottle feed the baby goats. This was hilarious. It was so funny to have a bunch of baby goats following you around, jumping up, grabbing your shorts, and trying to get to the baby bottle. I guess this could also sound horrifying. We had a blast doing it. We were laughing and trying to get away from them. This is in the middle of nowhere, but a fun place to spend a day. The best part of this little zoo is that all the animals are very close. You can walk right up to their cages/stalls and they are right next to you. read more

See all

This was a fun and exciting place to experience, we really enjoyed feeding the baby goats and being able to see all of the animals up close! Great place with a super cute gift shop! read more

See all

We've been taking our son to zoo's in the Great Lakes region since his birth and thought we'd seen everything locally until this zoo popped up on our radar that other day. Summerfield is a smaller zoo in the countryside south of Belvidere. Searches for area zoo's have failed to include this one in the past, but we're sure glad it was finally found. When you pull up to Summerfield you might second guess yourself given the exterior. First, it's in the middle of nowhere amongst the cornfields, and second, these folks haven't invested their money into the exterior presentation (ie the parking lot or fencing surrounding it). Now, wait..there's a good reason for that. The money goes into the animals and their environments instead. Within five minutes of entering we quickly realized this was a great zoo. The animal selection is vast and amazing, but even more important is their well-being. Each of the animals here looks as if they're being taken care of and tended to by world-renowned owners. We were really taken back, and pleasantly so, by the appearance and health of all of the animals here. Getting back to the animal selection, we really enjoyed what they had to offer. Some of our favorites were the wolves, hyena, lemurs, reindeer, smaller monkey breeds and baby goats. Yes..baby goats. Reason being, for a few bucks you can buy a bottle of milk and feed them in an open pen. We bought a bottle for our son to do this and he loved it. The goats were all over him. Summerfield also had a few babies, a new horse and a baby lemur. The baby lemur was a real stitch to watch..the older lemurs couldn't keep up with his antics. If you're looking for a unique zoo with a great selection of animals that are privately owned, stop in and give them your business. You won't regret it. Cheers. read more

What a nice zoo. You can tell they care about their animals. Definitely have some cool animals that you can get a lot closer to than any other zoo I've been to. They have a nice petting zoo set up with baby goats. Very cute. If you have the money to drop on an encounter, I would do it. We had an encounter with the cougar cub and it was great! Check their website for what they offer and call ahead. You need an appointment/reservation for the encounter. There is a gift shop on site for souvenirs. We drove into town for lunch. It was a great way to spend an afternoon. read more

See all

We visited here this weekend; we live within an hour from here & never knew it existed. Great little place to visit & support as they take in rescued animals. They had Arctic & Grey wolves, horses, goats, alligators, reindeer, lemurs, monkeys, hyena, bobcat, lynx, tortoises, wallabies, & a quite a few more animals. We spent a few hours here, & the kids (ages 7 & 13) both enjoyed themselves. They had a nice presentation where they showed some animals and walked around with them so everyone could pet them; the speaker was very knowledgeable about all the animals & kept it interesting. Overall, Summerfield is a great place to visit, price is good & it's always great to support such a worthwhile cause. I will definitely be talking to my son's school about taking a field trip here next year. read more

See all

We're so glad we came to this zoo! We never expected it to have so much beautiful wild life. And our little son Nathan had a blast, we will be back! read more

See all

Went for the reindeers thinking that this location was just a farm that had a Christmas theme around the holidays. We didn't expect to see so many exotic animals in tiny cages. If that's your thing then this is the place for you but we left pretty quickly and donated to the WWF. Not our cup of tea. read more

Summerfield Zoo - Cages Mountain Lions - Zoos Near Me - Belvidere, Illinois

I LOVE this place! A fun day trip to see a range of animals. The entire Anderson family is amazing and really love what they do and it shows! Santa even trusts them with his reindeer :) read more

The animals were cool but they either looked sick or unhappy. The reindeer were wheezing and the ostrich had no feathers. Many of the other animals such as the hyena and the big cats were either pacing out of boredom or skulking around their enclosures. read more

To be honest I had never been to a zoo besides Brookfield and Lincoln Park. My boyfriend saw on facebook that they had a litter of artic wolf puppies and wanted to see them. Puppies? I was in! We stopped on our way back from Galena and I was glad we made the detour. It was $9 to get in and that included the animal talk. If you're going to be there make sure you don't miss the animal talk. It was really interesting and it was free! You got to pet all the animals and afterward we got to take a picture with the wolf puppy. I think my favorite part was that many of their animals are rescued. Believe it or not, some wackos think alligators (and other not pet type animals) are house pets. That's where Summerfield comes in and takes care of these unwanted critters. If you're in the area make sure to stop in and remember EXOTIC ANIMALS ARE NOT PETS! read more

See all

This was a great local zoo to be in, some animals were from different countries and it was so nice to see them and they were properly domesticated. But the gift shop seemed somewhat too expensive. But they made up for it with the goat feeding, friendly animals and many other things. read more

This zoo is one of the most family friendly and animal friendly zoos I've ever seen. All the little kids really enjoyed it -- it's perfect for families looking for something to do. All the animal seemed really happy and the zoo offered many activities to get up close to the animals. It was amazing and I highly recommend. read more

This place was not at all what I thought it was. Animal enclosures were small and makeshift as compared to most zoos. We left after an hour feeling depressed with conditions. We've visited many zoos and game farms across the country (30) and Summerfield did not even come close to measuring up. The staff was friendly and went out of their way, but I think they are in over their head. My wish is that they are able to secure additional funding to grow what they've started because I believe they are well meaning. read more