We recently went to Rodbaston Animal Zone in the summer holidays the centre is within the grounds of South Staffordshire Rodbaston college campus, depends on which entrance you come into the campus depends on which end the centre is, as we went in the main college entrance, parked and went towards the main campus building only to find out was the other side. the centre is only open to the pubic on Saturdays & Sundays and throughout the school summer holidays only and it is open between 10am to 5pm the entrance cost is £5,20 for adults, £4.20 for children over 3yrs or a family ticket £16 which is for 2 adults and 2 children. There is a large free car park just at the front of the main building.
There is a small gift shop and tea room in the main entrance, with seating outside within the centre with a small play area for the kids with a climbing frame, sings etc. The centre has loads of all different types of animals, from sheep to birds. The avery section has a wide variety of birds, some with amazing colours. You also have a reptile section with all sorts of reptiles. There are also meerkats, turtles and so many animals to mention. There is a specail section with rabbits and guinie pigs, some I have to admit are really cute.
There are different events that go on through the year, when we went there was no special events on but there was two different talks showing you various creatures and letting you touch some of them, the one talk that we seen the keeper showed us a grass snake, cockroach & ?????. this was a very informative talk and the kids did really enjoy learning about the different creatures. While we was there they was doing a small activity for the children this was painting plant pots, and then going back to plant them with a seed, you could take these home and watch them grow, unfortunately when we went in the person on the desk didn’t tell us about this activity even though we had three children with us, so our kids only just planted the pots with seeds, but this is still good to get kids involved in planting and looking after plants.
All around the centre by the cages, pens they have different boards telling you about the animals. The aquatic building had all different types of tropical fish in. The one building had nocturnal animals in, so it was very dark inside, so some children may not like going it that part if they are scared of the dark.
We spent a good few hours around the animal zone, children will enjoy the visit as it is very informative and they can see all different animals and birds etc. though we have been to Birmingham nature centre which does have a few more animals and is cheaper to get it and is open all year round, to see my review of B’ham nature centre click HERE.
Though if you live in the South Staffs area and do have a day at the weekend or within the summer holidays it is well worth a visit as it is a good family day out if you go to the official website does give you the dates of special events that go on, so maybe worth looking to go on one of those days. to see the official website click HERE.
Below are some of the pictures of just a small selection of the animals within the Rodbaston animal zone nature centre & visitors centre.
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