Where to see farm animals with kids around Los Angeles

The moment a 2-year-old locks eyes with a goat beats any museum. There are no farms in the city itself, but 35 to 75 minutes east and south are a few free teaching farms and historic ranches, plus the big Orange County and Ventura County farms where one ticket fills a whole day.

Start with the free ones: Centennial Farm in Costa Mesa has enormous pigs and a big vegetable garden, Amy's Farm in Ontario is a real working farm where a bag of feed buys a morning, and Rancho Los Alamitos in Long Beach is so quiet time seems to have stopped. For an event: ride a tractor into the fields at Tanaka Farms in Irvine for strawberries or pumpkins, spend a day at Underwood Family Farms in Moorpark with its animal center, pig races and farm play area, or cuddle guinea pigs at Zoomars in San Juan Capistrano, which also has a little train and ponies.

• 6 places
• 3 free
• 6 stroller-friendly
• closest is 35 min away