OCOEE, Tenn. (WDEF) — Did you know that there is a place in Polk County where you can share a room with a sloth? Ocoee Riverside Farm offers 23 different animal encounters each day, and the world is taking notice. They’ve had visitors from 49 states and 15 countries! Let’s take a stroll around the grounds in tonight’s Destination Ocoee.
“John and I moved here in 2019 with no animals. My plan was to find a piece of property where we would have a dog, 2 or 3 horses and chickens. Chickens were going to be the most, exotic animal that I had ever owned. Our vision was to come out here and retire. We are now as far away from being retired as any two people could get. The property had a beautiful cabin down there on the Ocoee River. And so we started hosting guests in that cabin. And those guests would see our chickens and our horses, and they would say things like, so could we bring the kids up and see some chickens? Are your guests allowed to ride the horses? And then one day I said to John, you know, the guests are enjoying the horses and the chickens so much. What if we got a llama?,” said Donna Warner, Owner of Ocoee Riverside Farm.
“We’re now running over 23, farm animal encounters daily. Some of those encounters are with, Dash here. Dash is one of three slots that we have on the property, as well as camels. Kangaroos on Mondays. We’ve got zebras. Of course. All your domestic farm animals, horses, ponies, pigs, sheep, goats, donkeys. We have llamas and alpacas. So kind of tortoises. We have exotic waterfowl. Various parrots. And we’ve got a lot of reptiles as well. So there’s something for everybody out here at a cozy riverside farm. We have accommodations that range in size and price from our glamping site, which sleeps 1 to 2 people, all the way up to our VIP accommodation, which is our camel condo sleeping 12. In the camel condo. We have three master suites, each with its own full bath, but some of the really amazing features are that you have a two story sloth enclosure that comes up through the floor to the living room floor in the camel condo. So as a guest there, you’re actually rooming with flash. Another one of our sloths. You also have secret passageways and hidden doors. Hidden tunnels. You’ve got two bunk rooms that are behind a couple of those secret passageways. That’s really fun for the kids to find their rooms once they check in. it’s not just the locals we’ve noticed that are coming out to Ocoee Riverside Farm. We have been tracking and we have now had guests here from all but one of the 50 United States were missing. Idaho. So, Idaho. Come see us. More interestingly enough, is we have now had guests from at last count, over 15 different countries, 16 maybe we just had Ireland here yesterday. And while some of those guests are coming to the United States because they’re vacationing in the United States and they’re making Ocoee Riverside farm as part of that vacation, many of them are flying to the United States just to come to a little spot on the map called Benton, Tennessee, to spend their vacation here with us, which is truly amazing,” said Warner.
