A beloved South Jersey animal farm closes, blaming rising costs and dwindling attendance

The Paws Discovery Farm was barely more than a barnyard when Carly Hudson went as a child — mostly pigs in mud and horses grazing in fields.

Since then, the farm has added everything from alpacas to emus to Scottish Highland cattle with long, curved horns — and for years a visit there was a staple for area families, schools, and day cares. After becoming a mom, Hudson took her own daughters to the Mount Laurel location as often as possible.

On Wednesday, after learning that the farm and nature center was closing for good by the end of the day, she brought her 2- and 4-year-old girls one last time.

“My older daughter was crying about it,” said Hudson, of Mount Laurel. “It’s different here than going to a zoo, because you have this nice space to walk around and really be with the animals.”

Hudson and her family were among many who came to say goodbye to the farm that since 1979 has been located on a 10-acre property on Hainesport Mount Laurel Road. On Tuesday, the Paws team announced its plans to close, citing mounting bills and a fall season that generated less revenue than expected.

Director Kelly Lyons said the approximately 200 animals would be relocated to horse owners and other animal farms in New Jersey.

Lyons is also the director of the Garden State Discovery Museum, the children’s museum in Cherry Hill that since 2017 has been managing the farm. Last April, the Discovery Museum signed a three-year extension to continue that relationship.

But Lyons said the museum had been subsidizing the farm for some time. Caring for the animals is expensive, she said, and the 200-year-old buildings require constant maintenance. Paws is about $150,000 short of the $500,000 it needs annually to keep the farm running, she said.

“When we were looking at the future, and at the costs, we saw that it just wasn’t working,” she said. “This wasn’t what we wanted to do, and we really hoped to find a solution.”

The farm had been closed to the public since Jan. 6, but it was not clear until this week that a permanent closure was on the horizon.

The announcement prompted criticism from township officials. Meredith Tomczyk, township manager for Mount Laurel, said officials were blindsided when the Discovery Museum informed the town two months ago that it planned to close.

“Discovery Museum’s actions are outrageous,” she said in an emailed statement. “The township has bent over backwards to help the facility, including repaving and expanding the parking lot just last year after the new three-year deal was signed. Had they given any indication that they were having second thoughts, the township could have spent those tax dollars in other areas and, equally important, had adequate time to find a new operator to continue the Paws Farm mission.”

Lyons said Wednesday that she and others tried to find a business or other source of funding to keep the farm afloat, but none had materialized.

After Paws joined with the Discovery Museum, the museum invested in improvements and attendance skyrocketed, Lyons said. But that led to higher overhead costs, and in subsequent years the farm lost some of its funding. That was compounded by lower-than-expected attendance last spring and fall, normally the farm’s busiest seasons.

The land, which is owned by the township, will remain open space under the state’s Green Acres program. The main building that greets visitors is regularly used as a polling location during elections, and could be used for other town events, Lyons said.

On Wednesday a few wild turkeys scampered across a path, while spotted pigs pressed their noses to a wire fence. Ed Hart, a retired Cherry Hill West teacher who came to the farm with his daughter and grandchildren, said the setting provides the hands-on experiences children need most early in life.

“There’s not that many places left like this,” he said. “Now they’ll have to resort to the stupid internet.”