arnold's wildlife rehabilitation

Whether visiting with Lulu the camel, Billy the Kid goat or the adorable brown and white calf the animal adventures were right around the corner.Ducks, peacocks, otters, tortoise, deer, panther, lemurs, and many more. Great place for kids to see animals up close.

What an amazing animal rescue home. Friendly reindeer and peacocks roam free! The butterfly garden is so much fun and children will love running through the garden. Donation is fee

Read the previous reviews yesterday so I went to look at it today.Was greeted by a friendly gentleman, and took the tour myself taking my time to see the animals more than once! The attraction when I came was Friday around 13:00 hours to about 14:30, on a hot summer afternoon, so there wasn't many people there, but the animals (most) were eager to greet me. Even the nocturnal panther managed to raise his head to see who interrupted his sleep.If your looking for a great family time visiting some of Gods more exotic creatures, with low foot traffic, Arnold's is Great!

This is definitely the kind of place to see rare, neat, dangerous animals up close without having to go on a safari. I live near the everglades and have visited many parks and hiked a lot to see very little animals. This place has an assortment of many different cool animals all in one spot. I decided to go here only because of the reviews online. It is indeed far off of any main highways but a very neat area none the less, surrounded by open prairie lands, huge dairy farms and other beautiful rural areas. We were not greeted nor given a "tour" as others have explained here. The two people there did say hi and were nice but that's about it. They were busy working, cleaning up cages and tending to the animals. I get it, this is not a zoo nor a park for tourists but, there is quite a bit of stuff about them on the web including their own site encouraging people to visit thus, I guess we expected a little bit of a tour as to what happened to this animal or that animal or even a little a bit of history about the place would have been sufficient. We did leave the 10/adult donation and we wish them the best as it seems they are doing a good thing for the animals. Nearby there is also Okeechobee Lake, Kissimmee Prairie and a cool war memorial in the city square with military vehicles that the kids also loved so all in all, the local area was a great, interesting place to visit.***On a side note, for the other people here bashing about the small cages etc, it's easier said than done. If they feel so bad for the animals they should invest their own money and time and effort into doing what these people are doing. The animals appeared well fed, clean and there seems to be a medical triage on the site also. So again, kudos to Arnold's for doing what they do for the animals.

Lots of confiscated and turned in animals that are either being rehabilitated to return to the wild or to be transferred to a zoo to be seen here. It is kind of depressing but it does give you hope when you realize the lives that they lived before they got there. The butterfly garden is really cool, tons of butterflies flying around with peacocks, cats, Sandhill Cranes and chickens.

What a charming place. As soon as we stepped on property we felt welcome. There is a wonderful assortment of cool critter and Sue is a wonderful tour guide. If you have kids this is a great place to check out. On her recommendation we grabbed a sweet treat at the Brown Cow, and checked out the Veteran's Park across the street. We were the just in time to hear the church bells. What a great day. Thanks Sue!

This place is quite small but worth the short semi-scenic drive. The price to get in is a $10 donation or more if you feel inclined. The animals are in small cages but this place wasn't meant to be a zoo. I found it fascinating watching the lemurs and the peacocks. There is a small butterfly garden as well that was pleasant to walk through. It sure was intimidating to have a Florida panther watch you walk by! Enjoy the quaintness of it!

This was completely worth the short drive and the $10 per adult donation. Sue and the others were very friendly but you are free to roam the facility on your own too. You can spend an hour or several hours and have a picnic. My girlfriend and I got to pet an endangered lynx (if I remember correctly) that Sue had just rescued. It is not touristy at all so don't go in expecting anything commercial or fancy. However, it was very clean and the animals were well tended.

Sue, runs it is so friendly and eager to tell you about all her "prize" adopted animals she has rescued, from wild to domestic. On our last visit a deer kept coming up to us for more and more attention. There is a beautiful Butterfly Garden which had just been trimmed back but when in full bloom at tracks so many different and beautiful butterflies. You can tell the animals are her children and treated with so much care and love.

Went there today. Very nice and clean place. Only takes 30 minutes or do to see everything. Still very cool

Brought my family out to spend the day and have a picnic. When we pulled up we were greeted by peacocks, Deer and friendly Dogs. We were also given a big hello from Sue Arnold and her wonderful staff :) Gave a ten dollar donation for me and the kids were free :) My kids loved getting up close to see animals they have never seen before. Sue and her staff told us stories of how each animal came to live at Arnolds Wildlife Center. My Children learned so much about the care and facts about each animal. I asked about the rehab animals Sue and her staff explained they are kept in an area away from people other than staff because the goal is to release them back in the wild when they are better so they don't want to them to get use to people, also it is a law in Flordia that rehab animals are not to be out where people can see them. This was the highlight of our trip we arrived at 10 am and did not leave until almost 5 pm! We will be going back and will recommend Arnolds Wildlife Center for all our friends!!! Can Wait until next time :)))))

We totally enjoyed seeing the rare animals and birds. The staff were friendly and informative. There's a little drive to get there but well worth it.

This place is located about 10 miles north of Okeechobee. If you are heading out of the area, follow 441 to hwy 144 (turn left at the blinking yellow light). The next road to the left is 30th st. Take that just a short ways and the barking dogs will tell you hat you are thee. At the turn, you will see a large sign indicating the rehab enter, so it is easy to find. As mentioned a few dogs will greet you, but not jump up on you or anything if you are concerned. An there was a young cow walking around too. You will see the entrance to the left of the parking area. There was no one to greet you, so you drop off your donation in the box. They ask $10/adults, but you can leave more if you are able. They do have several different type of animals to see and the cages have information about them. There was not a guide when I was there, and I would have liked to have seen some general information about how they came about getting these animals and whether they were there to stay or being rehabbed and released. There were several people there hosing down some of the pens. It appeared that they were in clean conditions, although some of the grass in the pens were overgrown, but perhaps that is not a bad thing. I do agree with anther reviewer that the cats did appear to be in cages that seemed too small for them. I guess they need more donations, or sponsors in order to fund larger accommodations. They do have programs where you can choose to sponser a certain animal at the rehab center. If you are interested, I think you can do this from their web site, or better yet, visit and see where you think you would like to help. They had some feeding machines near the entrance where you can pay some money and get some pellets to feed some animals. I didn't get any and when I walked the boardwalk where the deer, llamas, goat, etc were, it was evident they are use to being fed. Even though this is a small 'zoo', I did not walk back to get any feed. So if you are interested in feeding some animals, pick some of that up when you are entering the animal area. There was a nice garden area, however perhaps being the end of winter it had been neglected and was quite overgrown. Hopefully in Spring some volunteers come in and help get it ready for visitors. If you are looking for something to do in Okeechobee, and you like animals, I think this is something nice to do. I was not there for a long time, but I guess if you stop some of the people working there and ask questions, you can extend your visit.

We drove 4 hours to visit this center and am not only disappointed but distressed about the cages that many of the animals are kept in. I wouldn't keep my domestic cats in a concrete floored chain-link cage of 12ft x 6ft and it is certainly not suitable for pairs of larger cats - it looks like a prison for many of these cats - maybe this is short term accommodation but there was no-one there to ask. The only person we saw on a golf cart drove off not long after we arrived. We dropped the suggested donation of $10 per adult into the box and walked around. The parrot cages we saw did not even have enough room for the birds to stretch their wings. The largest cat in a concrete floored wire cage showed signs of distress as it paced back and forth. Maybe check the cages at Flamingo Gardens in Ft Laud for an idea of a better solution. trees, greenery, areas to roam. Something that looks more natural and more comfortable. We weren't even sure if there would be enough cover and protection from a Florida rainstorm for many of these animals.It's no good giving a climbing animal a large cage if there is nothing to climb on.... many of these cages could have benefitted from ropes, swings, tree limbs. Some animals were ok. but others were alone and probably could have benefitted from being mixed with another species and having other company. Maybe this has been tried but there were no notices about where the animals had come from, their conditions or why they couldn't be released. Very sadly disappointed with this center. I feel that maybe they started off trying to help but they have along way to go.

There is a wide selection of animals and birds from around the world in a zoo like setting more so than a rehabilitation center. Some of the large cat enclosures are a little small for the size of the animals, particularly a large puma that paces back and forth in a small cage with a concrete floor. A number of the smaller cats and foxes could also benefit from larger accomodations. The grandchildren loved talking to the cockatoos.