CRANBURY: Petting zoo offers a chance to walk with the animals

By Mike Morsch, Executive editor
As a child, Jan Murphy loved petting zoos. Years later, when she grew up and became the Youth/Community Outreach librarian at Cranbury Public Library, she decided to try and find a petting zoo that would fit into a summer library theme.
An online search turned up What-Knott Farm, located in Perkiomenville, Pennsylvania, which specialized in breeding miniature animals and then taking them on the road as a petting zoo for people to experience.
Ms. Murphy determined What-Knott Farm owners Martha and Gregory Knott and their traveling petting zoo might be a good match for the library.
“About 20 minutes before their first scheduled arrival, I panicked,” said Ms. Murphy. “Never having met them, and with only having seen a couple of online testimonials, I was sure a marauding band of flea-bitten animals was on its way to Cranbury.”
Nothing could have been further from the truth, according to Ms. Murphy.
That was 10 years ago, and the What-Knott Farm petting zoo has been featured at the library four times in the past decade, the most recently on June 27.
The Knotts describe their endeavor as “a traveling petting zoo with cute, clean pettable animals with a few exhibition animals.” The farm features all miniature animals, including horses, donkeys, babydoll sheep, potbelly pigs, goats, rabbits, chickens and a turkey. The Knotts also have owned a wallaby, a Patagonian cavy, a muntjac deer, a few llamas, a yellow-nape amazon parrot, giant tortoises, fennec foxes, a skunk and other “pets” that have been part of their household and petting zoo.
“In reality, they are cute, scrupulously clean in every way, and well-behaved except maybe for the turkey,” said Ms. Murphy. “I think the owners take great pains to make the experience memorable for the kids while not letting them get overly ‘handsy.’ ”
Approximately 200 attendees showed up for this year’s event, including Cranbury Summer Recreation Camp participants, all the ballerinas from the Princeton Ballet School and many young children and their caretakers.
“It was fun. It’s always fun,” said Ms. Murphy.