A North Carolina mom who hired a mobile petting zoo for her children's birthday parties is now urging other parents to seek rabies vaccinations after four of the company's baby goats tested positive for the virus.
Aylin Cruz said she received a call from her local county health department days after the party, alerting her that goats from Farm Adventures Mobile Petting Zoo had tested positive for rabies, and that her 9-year-old and 4-year-old may have been directly exposed. State officials identified a month-long window, from July 28 through August 27, during which the infected animals traveled to events across Durham County and other parts of the state, ABC11 reported.
The goats, named Molly, Maggie, Cow, and Uno, were too young to have received rabies vaccinations when a skunk entered the pen where they were kept, Fox News reported. State officials said the skunk likely bit the animals, but the petting zoo was unaware the goats had been exposed. The infection went undetected until one of the goats was sent for a necropsy, a postmortem examination, and all four ultimately tested positive at the North Carolina State Laboratory of Public Health.
No one knows how many children, parents, or elderly visitors touched those goats over the course of a month. State officials have not released a count of events Farm Adventures attended during the exposure window, nor have they named every county where the company operated beyond Durham. That gap leaves families guessing.
Cruz, who booked the petting zoo for two separate birthday parties, said the health department's call blindsided her. She is now pressing every parent who may have had contact with the animals to act immediately.
Cruz told ABC11:
"I told her, for my peace of mind, and your peace of mind, go get vaccinated, and for any parent that has any question, I highly recommend them to go get vaccinated."
Rabies is nearly always fatal once symptoms appear. Post-exposure treatment, a series of shots given after potential contact, is highly effective but must begin before the virus takes hold. That makes the timeline critical, and the weeks-long delay between the exposure window's start on July 28 and the public alert in late August is the kind of gap that should trouble any parent.
The owner of Farm Adventures, based in Harmony, North Carolina, has not been publicly identified by name. But the company released a statement on Facebook acknowledging the situation.
Farm Adventures told the New York Post:
"These past few days have been incredibly difficult for us. We are working closely with public health officials, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, and animal control to address this issue and ensure the safety of our animals and clients."
The company said all its animals have since received a rabies booster and that all employees who work at the farm have also been vaccinated. What remains unclear is why four baby goats too young to be vaccinated were taken to public events where children could pet and handle them, and why no one at the farm noticed the animals had been bitten by a skunk.
State officials said there have been no confirmed human rabies cases in North Carolina since 2011. That long streak is a credit to the state's public health infrastructure, but it also means most parents booking a petting zoo for a child's birthday have no reason to think about rabies at all. A skunk in a pen and four unvaccinated baby goats changed that calculus overnight.
Officials are advising anyone who believes they had direct contact with goats from Farm Adventures during the July 28, August 27 window to call their local county health department. The department can help determine whether post-exposure medication is necessary. The type of contact that constitutes a risk, whether petting alone is enough, or whether a bite or scratch is required, has not been specified in public statements.
Several basic questions remain unanswered. How many events did Farm Adventures attend during that month? How many people, including children, had hands-on contact with the infected goats? Were the animals quarantined or removed from service before the positive test results came back? And what, if any, regulations govern whether baby animals too young for core vaccinations can be brought to public gatherings?
Parents who did the simple, normal thing, hiring a petting zoo for a kid's party, deserve clear answers, not a phone call weeks later telling them their children may have been exposed to one of the deadliest viruses on the planet. Accountability starts with the basics: vaccinate the animals before you put them in a child's arms.
