Let's face it, no child is happy when its time for the animals to go home. We suggest when the petting zoo's time is up, gather the children and have an organized game or two.  Then you can wrap up your party with cake, ice cream, and food. 

Animal Sounds Contest

Have the kids take turns and make their best barnyard animal noises. For older kids you can use a panel of judges to later award prizes for the longest, shortest, silliest, quietest, loudest, quietest, etc. so that at the end everyone wins!

Chicken Egg Relay Race

For this kid birthday party game, separate the group into two teams and have them stand in two single-file lines facing the same direction. Place a chicken egg (a small white balloon) between the knees of the first kids in the line. Once the whistle is blown, the race begins where the first kid with the egg needs to turn to the second person in line and the second person needs to grasp the chicken egg between their knees. The second kid passes it to the third and so on. The team to get the egg to the end is the winner. If the egg drops in the middle that group has to start over.

Pig Races/Sheep Herding

This is a kid birthday party game that is not only fun to watch but also very fun to play. You’ll need to blow up large pink balloons. With a permanent marker make piggy faces and attach curly pink ribbon to one end of each pig. Choose a starting point and an ending point. Divide the group into two teams and have them stand in a line behind the starting line. At the blow of the whistle the first one in the line needs to get the pig from the starting line to the ending line and back to the starting line with a fly swatter (swatting the pig balloon). Make sure to have extra pink balloons just in case any pop. You can also choose to do this with sheep where you blow up white balloons, attach short pieces of black curling ribbon to make little sheep tails and use a black marker to draw faces on them (you can also decorate with cotton balls). Try being creative and creating other barnyard balloon animals – cows, chicken, horses, etc.

Animals on the Loose

For this cool kid birthday party game, hide lots of barnyard animals all around the party area. Make a barn out of a big box and put a sign saying “barn”. Tell the kids that all of the animals were let loose and that they need to find them. Stand next to the barn. Once a kid runs back to put an animal back in the barn give them something small like a sticker, the second time possibly a tattoo, the third time an ice pop.

Dance and Sing-Along

The kids can dance and sing to great tunes that fit perfectly to this theme, as the chicken dance, the bunny hop and more. You can also check out this whole page of Barnyard kid songs we’ve created, it has lots of kid songs that fit the Barnyard theme.

The Barn is on Fire!

For this kid birthday party game, put two chairs on one side of the party area, put a large empty tub (or any other large container) on each chair, and tape a picture of a barn on the chair. Divide the group into two equal teams and have each team stand in a line about 15-20 feet away from the chairs. Give the first person of each team a plastic pail, a farmer’s hat, a bandana and gloves. Once the relay starts, the first person needs to put on the farmer’s hat, the bandana around their neck, the gloves, and to run with the pail of water. What they need to do is run to the barn chair and dump the water in the tub. They then run back and give the next person the hat, bandana, and gloves. While this is happening an adult fills their pail with water. They then do the same as the first person. The team that finishes first (all the players have gone) wins! To play this kid birthday party game indoors, use blue tissue paper to represent water in the pail.

Egg on Spoon Race

Divide the children into two teams and have them stand in two lines. Each team gets 1 egg for each person.The first person in line on each team holds a spoon with a plastic egg on it. They have to travel to a bucket about 10 feet away. If they drop the egg they have to go back to where they started. (Little ones can just put the egg back on their spoon and continue). The first team to fill their bucket wins. Older kids can use real eggs :-).

Favorite Farm Books

Read the kids some great farm-themed books. Some of the favorites are “Old MacDonald had a farm”, various versions of “Chicken Little”, “Wishy Washy” and “Duck and Hen” by the Wright Group, “The Little Red Hen”, “The Little Yellow Chicken”, etc.

Duck Duck Goose

This is where you don’t need to change the name of this classic game to fit the theme because it’s perfect the way it is for the Barnyard theme!! A way you can make this kid birthday party game more interesting is raking up leaves into a huge pile (if you can – at least 3/4 feet tall) and whenever anyone gets “goosed” they have to jump into the leaves.

Milk the Cow

Here’s a really fun kid birthday party game for this theme! Make your own cow by taking a medium-sized rectangular box for the body and a white balloon for the head (use paper for the ears, a cup for the nose, and paper towel tubes for the legs). Paint the paper towel tubes white and use a black magic marker or paint to make the spots on the head and legs. Then you can add water (or even milk!) to a few Latex gloves for cow utters which you attach to the bottom of the cow’s body. Poke a tiny hole in the glove fingers so that the kids can start milking.

Pin the Tail on the…

Here you can take any barnyard animal with a tail and play as if it were “pin the tail on the donkey”. You can see what animal your kid prefers whether it is a cow, horse, pig, etc. (basically any barnyard animal with a tail).

Pig Out

This is a kid birthday party game where Jell-O is placed in small trays and the kids get to pig out just like pigs. This is best if you divide the group into 2 or 3 teams. They then have the group choose the pig. The pigs sit on their knees with their hands tied behind their backs and whoever finishes eating the Jell-O first, gets a point. The rest of the team needs to root for the pig. Then the next kid comes up and that’s when you put Jell-O (or any other kind of food, whether it be cake, whip cream, etc.) in the bowls and you go for another round until everyone has been a pig.

Find Mrs. Clucks Eggs

Hide colorful plastic Easter Eggs filled with a treat or party favor around the play area, house, or back yard. Tell the story: Poor Mrs. Cluck is so forgetful she laid her eggs about the farmyard and can’t find them back! How many of Mrs. Cluck’s eggs can you find?

Farm Animal Charades

This kid birthday party game can be very fun especially when parents will be there. In a farmer’s hat put lots of animal names. The parents must then act out the animals and kids need to guess. If there are no parents the kids can do this by dividing the group into two and have them take turns where one from their team goes up and acts out an animal for their group.

Animal Match

Give each kid a piece of paper with an animal written on it (write down each animal twice or three times). On the blow of the whistle everyone makes the noise their animal makes. The matching animals have to quickly find each other only by listening for their sound. Once they’ve found their partner they grab each other’s hands and sit down. If you want to have winners and losers for this kid birthday party game, the last pair to sit down goes out of the game. This is a fun kid birthday party game to play again and again.

Animal Run

Lay two ropes parallel to each other about 15 to 25 feet from one another (best in a big yard or party area). Cut out pictures of barnyard animals and glue them to index cards. Give each player a card except for one who is the Farmer. Have half of the group stand behind a line and the other half behind another line (making a rectangular space to play in, as with dodgeball), the Farmer stands in between the ropes. The Farmer walks back and forth making sure no animals are on the loose. The Farmer calls out different animals, one at a time, and the players holding those cards have to run to the opposite side to stand behind the other rope. If the Farmer tags a running animal, that animal needs to freeze. The last animal not to get caught becomes the Farmer.