Open Farm Days at Oasis Camel Dairy in Ramona
Oasis Camel Dairy is a family farm less than an hour northeast of San Diego outside Ramona. They hold regular events that are open to the public. These open farm days are a great family event.
WEBSITE: https://cameldairy.com/
While Oasis Camel Dairy has a Ramona address, its location its pretty far out from town on an isolated section of Highway 78. The farm is about halfway between downtown Ramona and the Santa Ysabel turnoff for Julian and the mountains. This makes it a perfect stop as part of a longer weekend drive.
The Open Farm Days are held once a month on a consecutive Saturday and Sunday. They usually run from 1 to 4. The cost for adults is $12 and kids age 4 to 14 are $8.
Admission includes an animal show and a chance to feed camels and other animals. For an extra $15 ($10 for children riding in pairs) there are camel rides.
If you look up things to do in Ramona, Oasis Camel Dairy comes up number one. We agree and found it to be well worth the price of admission. However, we caution this is more of low-key activity on a working farm.
That being said we were really impressed with visiting Oasis Camel Dairy. The animal show not only features camels but it has birds. The most exciting part was when they showed how the trained dogs corral the turkeys.
The turkeys at Oasis Camel Dairy farm are used in the Wild West Turkey Stampede held at fairs, including the San Diego County Fair in June. In this fair favorite, turkeys chase a remote control truck around a track.
After the show the camel feeding opens up. Everyone gets apples on a popsicle stick that they can feed to the camels.
We found that the best strategy was after the show to go and feed the animals on the other side of farm. Come back to the camels after the initial crowd dies down. This way we had the camels largely to ourselves.
The other animals for feeding including sheep, goat, a miniature donkey and ponies. You can feed these animals directly from your hand.
There is also a nice collection of exotic birds, including an African crowned crane, a Toucan and a Macaw. Some of these birds are featured in the animal show.
The gift shop has a nice collection of camel related gifts and products. This includes soaps made from camel milk and even camel milk chocolate. You can see the product selection online.
Camel milk is supposed to be very healthy. Unfortunately, the Oasis Camel Dairy is still working on getting a permit to sell its milk. Selling camel milk only became legal in the United States in 2012. However, California has its own set of regulations.
This 2018 article from Food Safety News looks at the issue of camel’s milk from a health and safety perspective. It features a nice discussion of Oasis Camel Dairy Farm. They don’t sale their camel milk because they are simply too small to be able to comply with al the regulations.
We found out about Oasis Camel Farm when it was featured on television. This included both the late Huell Howser and Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs back in 2009 (Season 4 episode 10).
In addition to monthly open farm days, Oasis Camel Dairy farm has regular special events. This includes a Watermelon Days in mid-July and a Pomegranate Days in late November.
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