Agritourism Business Success
AS FEATURED IN
The Business Times
AS FEATURED IN
The Business Times
FREE: PETTING ZOO & SCHOOL TRIP SAFETY CHECKLIST
The Petting Zoo Had Hand Sanitizer.
18 People Still Got Sick.
Get the free 82-point checklist that closes the four gaps Arizona’s 2025 State Fair E. coli outbreak exposed: handwashing, signs, animal health records and waivers.
Instant download. 100% free. Your email is safe with me.
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Eleven went to hospital. Six developed a life-threatening kidney complication.
Dear Farm Owner,
On Sunday, October 26, 2025, families spent the last day of the Arizona State Fair doing what your visitors love most. They petted goats. They scratched pigs. Then they went to find something to eat.
By November 3, a Phoenix children’s hospital had seen nine children with a dangerous kind of E. coli infection in a single weekend. Five of their families named the fair. When the county finished counting, 18 people were sick, 11 were hospitalized and 6 developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), which attacks the kidneys.
Here’s the part that should keep every farm owner up at night: there was hand sanitizer. Eight of the 11 sick visitors to the animal areas remembered it. Only five remembered a real handwashing station.
The fair’s answer was to drop its petting zoo. A fair can walk away from its animals. You can’t. Your animals are why families drive out to your farm and why teachers book your field trips.
So I turned the county’s findings, the national public-health guidance for animals in public settings, and the questions your insurer will ask after a child gets sick into one checklist you can work through in an afternoon. It’s yours free.
WHAT’S INSIDE
Inside your free checklist, you’ll discover:
Why hand sanitizer failed in Arizona, and the handwashing station spec that passes, drawn as a diagram you can hand to your builder
How many taps you really need for a class of 60 (one tap means a 45-minute queue, and that’s when kids get waved through)
The 3-zone farm layout that keeps hands, animals and food apart
The entrance and exit signs that actually get read, plus the one-inch warning-sign mistake that can cost you your state’s liability protection
The animal health records investigators asked for first, and a daily log that takes two minutes
Why a parent’s signature on your waiver may not hold up, and the 5 layers of protection that matter more
A 48-hour plan for the phone call no farm owner wants: “My child got sick after visiting you.”
Bonus printables: an opening-day check, 3 logs, a pre-visit letter for teachers and 2 ready-to-print signs
THE NUMBERS
34 pages. 82 checks. One afternoon to a safer farm.
82
tick-box checks
7
step-by-step checklists
3
printable logs
2
ready-to-print signs
Built on the Maricopa County outbreak report, CDC guidance and the national compendium written by America’s state public health veterinarians. Click the boxes in any PDF reader, or print it and tick with a pen.
IS THIS FOR YOU?
This is for you if…
Visitors touch, feed or hold your animals, even a few goats and a rabbit
You host school trips, birthday parties or farm tours with young children
You’d rather fix the gaps before the season than after a phone call from the health department
It’s not for you if you think a sign and a squirt of sanitizer are enough. Arizona proved they aren’t.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi, I’m Stephen Loke.
I’m an agritourism entrepreneur and the founder of AgritourismSuccess.com. My own farm, Bloopy Durians in Malaysia, welcomes visitors from around the world and has been featured in Bloomberg News and Asahi Shimbun.
I wrote this checklist because the fixes are cheap, and the cost of skipping them is not.
Bloomberg News featured our farm, Bloopy Durians.
FREE INSTANT DOWNLOAD
Get your free checklist now
Instant download. 100% free. Your email is safe with me.
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P.S. The most important item in this checklist is a sink with soap and running water. The cheapest is free: a staff member at the exit saying, “Soap and water, please!” Grab your copy and fix both before your next school bus pulls in.