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Popular petting zoo closing

Old McMicky's Farm was hurt by an E. coli scare. It will convert its business to a mobile display.

By AMBER MOBLEY
Published October 7, 2005

TAMPA - For the past 15 years, Old McMicky's Farm has been etched into the memories of Tampa Bay schoolchildren who have visited the popular petting zoo on field trips. On any given day, hundreds of kids would be bused there to ride ponies, pet goats and feed sheep.

Those days are coming to an end, thanks to an E. coli scare that has hurt business at petting zoos throughout the state. Old McMicky's Farm will be closing its doors, its owners said Friday.

Instead, it plans to go mobile - taking farm animals to the people with a scaled-down, touring display.

"We've got a stock trailer and a van, which is all we need," said Janice Rodda, who with her husband Earl Rodda, owns the 27-acre farm off Gunn Highway just south of the Hillsborough-Pasco county line. "We've been mobile before. We know how to do it."

The farm will stop hosting tours in February. Then, except for the horse and cow, Old McMicky's on wheels should have all the same animals.

"We don't want to lose this for the kids," Janice Rodda said. "Our main objective is education."

In an increasingly urbanized region, the farm has offered a rare opportunity for children to come face-to-face with farm animals. So it has long been a field-trip destination for schools throughout Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties.

For many schools, it's been an annual event.

"Our pre-K and kindergarten children really enjoy it," said Sherry Orr, principal of Egypt Lake Elementary in north Tampa. "It ties into the literature we're reading ... and for our students who live in the city, it's always a treat."

But recently, schools have shied away.

Hillsborough schools canceled all field trips to the farm this spring after an E. coli scare at other Florida petting zoos. Pasco and Pinellas schools kept booking field trips, but the whole situation spelled trouble for the already financially strapped farm.

The E. coli outbreak last March sickened people who petted farm animals at three fairs statewide. The outbreak was traced back to infected sheep, goats and cows provided by Ag Venture Farm Shows of Plant City.

The bacteria scare also hurt business at other area petting zoos, such as Pony Party Plus in Tampa and Granma's Hug-n-Farm in northeast Hillsborough. The Roddas are selling Old McMicky's Farm, although they won't name the buyer.

The farm's 27 acres in the Odessa area could be prime real estate. In June, a 2.3-acre tract of the farm sold for $140,000 to Avalon Building, a developer that builds upscale homes.

The sale of the rest of it hasn't been finalized, but the land's current zoning limits what can be done there. If houses are built, each one would have to be on at least a 2.5-acre lot.

Old McMicky's will remain open until February, hosting on-site tours Thursdays through Saturdays.

For more information about Old McMicky's Farm visit its Web site, www.oldmcmickysfarm.com or call 813 920-1948.

-- Times staff reporter Bill Coats contributed to this report. Amber Mobley can be reached at 813 269-5311 or amobley@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 7, 2005, 19:31:02]