Amazing Norfolk Experiences For Families: Feeding the Giraffes at Banham Zoo

Daddy’s taking us to the zoo tomorrow? It’s the thing of song, of rhymes, of legend! There’s no better classic family day out than a trip to the zoo! And that’s what today’s post is going to be all about: visiting our local zoo.

Our closest local zoo is Banham Zoo, which is a 50-acre zoo in Banham, Norfolk, England. Although it’s a relatively small zoo, Banham Zoo is home to over 2,000 animals including some of the bigger animals that children are most excited to see: Tigers, leopards, zebra, and giraffes.

Tickets to Banham Zoo cost £22.50 per adult, £17 per child aged between 3-15, and children under the age of 3 pay just £1. You can book tickets here.

When the boys were much younger we had Banham Zoo season tickets so we used to go all the time, but these just aren’t good value for us now as they are at school all week and committed to their football clubs/surfing schedule in the summer.

But our favourite experience at Banham Zoo is an interactive experience that you can pay extra for. Feeding the giraffes. And that’s going to be the focus of this piece!

How Much Does It Cost To Feed Giraffes At Banham Zoo?

Feeding the giraffes at Banham zoo has an extra charge, which means that you’ll pay this as well as the entry price detailed above.

The giraffe feeding experience costs £15 per person. There isn’t a separate price for adults and children: everyone pays the same. And you have to be aged over 6 to be able to take part in this experience.

The experience takes place on every day except Tuesday. You meet at the Giraffe Feeding Experience Meeting Point (pictured above) which is just outside the giraffe enclosure. You then get to walk out onto a platform that goes into the enclosure (and is only accessible to these with a giraffe feeding ticket) where you can get much closer to the giraffes.

First you get a short talk from the zoo keeper who tells you how to feed the giraffes, what they eat, and a few other fascinating facts. Our keeper was great, giving us the info we needed in an engaging way, but without taking too long because the kids just wanted to feed the giraffes and we were aware that time was of the essence!

Then we were given a bucket filled with veggies and the giraffes were happy and waiting to take the food straight from our hands. There’s no keeping a straight face about this: we were all like kids again! The chance to hand feed the tallest animals on the planet who were so gentle as they took their veggies was amazing.

The giraffe feeding experience is only scheduled to last for 10 minutes, but we were with the giraffes and our keeper for around 15 minutes.

This was a short but sweet experience, and I’m not going to lie we did wish that it could have lasted a little longer. It would have been nice to have a little more time after the feeding on the platform to see the giraffes up close. But having said that, i’m aware that having so many humans so close might be distressing for the animals for an extended period of time, and respect that the time is so limited for the protection of the animals.

Animal protection and meeting their needs is something that Banham Zoo clearly take seriously, and you can see this in every aspect of animal care at the zoo.

We had quite a small group for our experience (two families of four) but i’m not sure what the maximum number of people is that can take part in the experience. I think any more than 8 people at a time would have felt quite chaotic!

You can find out more about the giraffe feeding experience at Banham Zoo and booking this experience here.

Other Animal Feeding Experiences At Banham Zoo

This isn’t the only animal feeding experience at Banham Zoo, but it is the only one we’ve tried so far.

You can also do a ‘meet the meerkat’ feeding experience (which I would love because I have a real affinity for cheeky meerkats) and a ‘meet the howler monkey’ experience. But we chose the giraffe experience as this seemed like the most child friendly choice for our boys at the time. And the scale of the gentle giraffes made this a ‘core memory’ experience I would recommend to anyone.

The meet the meerkats experience has a lower age limit of 8+. This also costs £15 and lasts 10 minutes (you can find out more here). The meet the howler monkeys experience also has a lower age limit of 8+ and costs £15 for a 10 minute experience (you can find out more here).

Obviously you don’t get to hand feed these animals, and the interaction is a little more hands-off which is why we chose to feed the giraffes. And we definitely don’t regret our choice! It was an amazing experience that the kids love, and that started plenty of conversations about conservation and the importance of caring for animals as a family.

I know that zoos can be divisive, and we’ve certainly been to zoos or taken part in animal experiences that we felt were questionable. There are some zoos we simply won’t visit, and we always do our research before any visit. But this wasn’t one of them! It was a great experience at a great zoo. How do you feel about zoos? Have you had any amazing (or less than amazing) zoo experiences that you’d like to share?

WANT MORE POSTS LIKE THIS STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX? JUST HIT SUBSCRIBE BELOW