Coolest Barnyard Birthday Party Ideas

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The Barnyard birthday party is a fun theme for all ages! Kids love farm animals and a great option for the party location is to find a local farm or petting zoo.

But Even if you plan to throw a Barnyard party at home, without any real animals and far away from any straw bales, there's still so much you can do to make it an exciting experience for the kids.

There are wagon-loads of Barnyard party ware designs to choose from. The list below covers more than you'll ever need, but gives you a good starting point to quickly compare prices across the Internet and choose your favorite designs:

You'll find many of the coolest ideas for a Barnyard party right here on this page, so get your scrolling finger ready and start plowing down this page.

You can either scroll down this page and read all the ideas or choose the idea category from the drop down list below:

Lots of visitors from all over the world have contributed their Barnyard theme party ideas to this section. As you enjoy and find inspiration from the ideas here, take a moment and submit your own Barnyard birthday party ideas. You'll be taking part in creating the Web's "coolest" kid birthday party ideas resource that's ALWAYS FREE for everyone to enjoy!

Barnyard Invitations

For barnyard birthday party invitations, you can make a red and white barn out of cardstock. Take the red paper and cut out a barn shape. Decorate it to look like a barn house. Then at the bottom cut upwards from the middle to a third of the way and then cut horizontal a third to the right and a third to the left (for the barnyard doors).

Then glue a white piece of paper (the same shape and size as the barn) to the back. With this birthday party invitation you will be able to open the two doors and write on the white piece of paper behind the two doors. On the doors, from the inside, glue or paint white strips as X's to look like authentic barn doors. On the doors you can write "Old McBobby (child's name) has a farm Eee-I-Eee-I-Oh " and on the white part you can write: "and you're invited to his birthday party Eee-I-Eee-I-Oh!! So get in the MOOO-d, mosey on over for a FARMtastic time- we'll make an ANIMAL out of you!! Place, time, date, RSVP (‘Neighs' only)!!"

If you want you can attach a strip of green construction paper to the bottom of the barn on which you can put a white picket fence and barnyard animal stickers. You can also cut out or draw a farmer's body and put your kid's face (from a picture) as the farmer. To add to the written part you can take a black sharpie and color cow prints around the words. In each birthday party envelope you can place a small amount of hay and kernels of dried corn. You can address each envelope to "Farmer Smith" (each kid's last name).

You can also write the birthday party information on yellow or red gingham paper, which fits really nice with this birthday party theme. Another idea is to write with a fabric or permanent marker on a bandana.

For birthday party thank-you notes you can write: "Oink, Quack, Cock-a-doodle doo!! Old McBobby thanks MOO!"

If you're in a hurry, or just want an original ready-made invitation you can print and send out, take a look at our free printable barnyard invitation designs below.

Barnyard Printables

We've created these original barnyard birthday party invitation designs for you to print out:

Barnyard 1
Worded Invitation
Blank Invitation
Env. 1 / Env. 2

Barnyard 2
Worded Invitation
Blank Invitation
Env. 1 / Env. 2

To get instant access to our original printable designs you'll need to subscribe first (FREE) to our Partyology ezine:

Make sure you also check out these awesome customizable birthday party invitations!

Barnyard Decorations

Make the birthday party area look like a barnyard. You can use brown twine around poles or trees for fencing - as a cow pasture, horse corral, etc. You can make wagon wheels out of cardboard (paint them brown or black), and attach them to rectangular boxes (best if painted red) as if wagons. In these you can put things like cutlery, plates, birthday party decorations, etc.

If you have a garage, turn it into a barn. Cover the outside in red butcher paper and use strips of white paper to make big white X's on the door. Inside you can create a section to be the "corral" - use round cardboard tubes painted brown for the posts. You can also check out this split rail fence.

You can also make your own little barn. For this you will need a large box, red spray paint, white tape and two pieces of poster board. First you want to spray paint your large box with red spray paint. Next cut out the barn doors—from the bottom of the box (in the middle) cut up to the height you want the doors to be. Then cut a ways to the left and a ways to the right (however wide you want each of the doors to be). Fold each of the doors back so to have a crease (and to be able to open and close the doors). With white tape, put 2 big X's (one on each door). On the backside cut doors or just a hole (that the children can fit through). You can make a rounded roof by taking hard Bristol board, rounding it, and attaching each of the smaller sides to the top of opposite sides of the box. You can attach this by taping the two sides with tape inside the box.

If you have any wheelbarrows or any wagons fill them with hay. Put baskets of white rubber or foam eggs around the birthday party area. Try to get a hold of stacks of hay to put all around the birthday party area (to make demi-hay take lots of brown paper bags and put through shredders).

If you have a wooden rocking horse - put it in the corral. Here are more barnyard birthday decorations.

You can set out hay bales for seating (place two bandanas diagonally on top of each hay bale to make it more comfortable to sit on and also to make it look nice). You can also put horse saddles on bales of hay for the kids to pretend they're riding a horse.

If you want the birthday party area to really look like a farm, check out this cool farm scene. with a 3-D Barn, cow and pig standees, and a farm tractor.

On the birthday party tables you can use red-checkered tablecloths. You can use small terra cotta plant holders decorated with a bandana around the top edge to hold silverware. You can use bandanas as napkins and tie with rope or raffia. It's nice to use a lot of raffia for decoration as it gives that farm-ish rustic look.

You can use the raffia to tie balloons to anything. For birthday party balloons you can use bandana printed balloons; check out these Cow print balloons, or cut out small pieces of black felt and glue them onto white balloons for a cow pattern. On balloons you can draw animal faces and glue or tape ears to the balloon (for example- to make pig balloons use pink balloons, draw a pig face, tape on little pink piggy ears, and use pink curly ribbon for a tail). Turn cowboy hats upside down and from the inside anchor balloons to it. Set out as many farm-related toys and novelties as you can.

You can also build your own scarecrow to put as a prop in your backyard. Here are basic directions to building a scarecrow.

Make all kinds of rustic looking signs saying things like "No horsin' around!", "Neigh Neigh there's a birthday party today!", "Moo Moo Happy Birthday to you", "Welcome to Old McDonald's farm", "Duck Pond", "Pig Pen", a flag with a picture of a rooster on it, etc.

Take terra cotta vases or any kind of bucket/container and fill them with sunflowers and Indian corn. You can also hang little farmer clothes (denim overalls, a bandana, red socks, thermal underwear, white t-shirts, brown boots, etc.) using clothespins on a thin rope.

You can put pictures of barnyard animals all around the birthday party area. If you have time and you're in the mood for painting your own animals, you can use an overhead projector, Xerox onto transparencies all kinds of farm animals, project them onto butcher paper, trace them with a big black marker, paint with tempera and cut them out. You can also cut out animal footprints and put them on the path leading to the birthday party area.

For entertainment you can have a farm CD playing in the background during the birthday party. Here's a great Barnyard Songs CD for kids.

Top Tip!

Before you buy anything online, make sure to check out the Barnyard supplies being offered on eBay. Often, you'll find new supplies at a fraction of what they cost at the stores:

Costumes

You and your whole family can dress up as farmers - bandanas, overalls, jeans, checkered flannel shirts, straw hats, work gloves, boots, painted on freckles, pigtails for the girls, etc.

Here are lots of inexpensive straw hats and colorful cowboy hats.

Some family members might even want to dress up as barnyard animals - there are rubber animal noses the kids can put on their nose. You can also make headbands with different barnyard animal ears. Try being creative with it, for example cut out an egg compartment from a carton, cut out two nostrils with an xacto knife, paint pink and you have a pig's nose; take a shower cap and cover it with cotton balls for a sheep, give out cow bells, etc. Here is a large variety of bandanas.

For more ideas, check out these cool homemade animal costumes.

Barnyard Icebreaker Activities

Farm Animal Magnet Craft: The kids can create their own really cute farm animal magnets.

Farm Animal Pretzels: The recipe for this is to mix 1 package of yeast, 1 and a half cups of warm water, one tablespoon of sugar, and one tablespoon of salt in a large bowl. Then slowly stir in flour. Knead on a table until the dough is smooth. At the birthday party make sure the kids have thoroughly washed their hands and give each kid a ball of dough. Let them be creative and shape their own animals. Once they're done brush each animal with a beaten egg, sprinkle salt and let the pretzels bake in a 425* oven for around 15 minutes (or until they turn brown).

Petting Zoo: For entertainment you can either go to a petting zoo with the kids or you might be able to find a company that specializes in bringing farm animals to a birthday party to create a little petting zoo in your own house. You can have goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits, ponies, etc. for the kids to feed.

Animal Cookies: You can let the kids decorate animal cookies. Set out the cookies, bowls of icing, sprinkles, and other creative toppings on the table and let the kids loose to decorate their very own animal cookies.

Homemade Barnyard Cakes

Check out the cool Barnyard theme party cake ideas on coolest-birthday-cakes.com, the Web's largest gallery of homemade birthday cakes. You'll find thousands of cakes submitted by visitors like yourself with photos and how-to tips.

Barnyard Cupcakes	Farming Scene
Barns and Animals	Farming Tractors

You can also make each kid his or her own cupcake covered in green icing and put a farm animal on each. You can also print out pictures of animals, tape them on popsicle sticks and stick them in the birthday party cupcakes.

You can make a great horseshoe cake with this Horseshoe cake pan.

If you want you can first bake a rectangular cake, frost it green or put coconut flakes with green food coloring to create a grassy texture and yellow colored coconut flakes for hay, and crushed Oreo for dirt. You can then take plastic barnyard toys (plastic fences, plastic farm animals, etc.) and put them all around. You can also try building a barn by using graham crackers and frosting. Here are nice plastic animals. to put on your cake.

You can put a lot of chocolate pudding in a bowl and cover it with some crushed Oreo's for dirt in mud, than put gummy worms on top and add some little plastic pigs. Check out these great homemade dirt cakes for more ideas. Here are homemade dirt cakes.

Barnyard Party Food and Drink

Ideas for Birthday Party Food:

It would really fit this birthday party theme to have a BBQ - hamburgers, chicken drumsticks and wings, etc. (ironic, isn't it?)
Pigs in blankets - Slice hot dogs lengthwise and put strips of cut cheese in between the hot dogs. Then unroll croissants and stuff them with the hot dogs and cheese. Roll back up the croissants and bake until golden brown. The kids'll squeal over these treats!
Make sandwiches shaped as animals (you can be creative with what you put in the sandwiches; try ham and Swiss cheese with a bit of mustard, peanut butter and banana slices; wrap and refrigerate the sandwiches - before you serve, remove from the fridge, trim off the crusts and cut out shapes with cookie cutters).
French Flies (fries)
Potato Salad
Macaroni and Cheese
Baked potatoes
Corn on the cob
Cole Slaw
Baked Beans
Corn Bread
A vegetable platter (you can make it look like a vegetable garden; in the middle of the platter put a bell pepper filled with dressing, add a mini sign saying Old MacDonald's vegetable garden).
Animal Face Pizzas - cut English muffins in half and give each kid two pieces of the English muffin. Spread pizza sauce on each and give to each kid to decorate animal faces. Be sure to provide things like cheese, pepperonis, mushrooms, olives, etc. Then bake on a cookie sheet at around 375 degrees for 5 to 10 minutes (or until the cheese melts).
Giant Chicken Eggs - Boil 8 eggs for 15-20 minutes (until they are hard boiled). Then cool with cold water, crack, and peel. Divide a pound of ground breakfast sausage into 8 equal portions and flatten each into a round patty. Then wrap a patty around each of the hard-boiled eggs (fully cover the eggs). Beat two raw eggs in a bowl and brush each sausage-wrapped egg in the beaten raw egg. Then crush saltine crackers and roll each egg in them (cover completely with the crackers). Put the eggs in a shallow dish and bake until the sausage is no longer pink (be sure to show everyone the giant eggs before you cut them into portions).

Ideas for Birthday Party Drinks:

Moo Juice (milk)
Bug Juice - Make frozen ice cubes with raisins in them so it looks like little bugs are in them. On the day of the birthday party place one tablespoon of grenadine syrup in each kid's cup, add a few buggy ice cubes and fill the cups with cream soda (watch how everyone will be amazed how their buggy drink turns pink and foamy).

Tip: You can serve drinks out of tin milk containers (the ones that milk came in back in the old days). You can also serve the drinks from metal pails and have a scooping spoon to pour into cups.

Ideas for Birthday Party Treats:

Gummy worms
Animal crackers
Animal fruit snacks
Any kind of animal-shaped foods
Chick feed - Chex-Mex and Candy corn. Put in low places for the youngin's to reach (put signs on them saying "chicken feed").
Pig muck - chocolate pudding
Bugs - chocolate-covered raisins.
Smores (marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers)
Trail mix
Jell-O Jigglers (cut with animal-shaped cookie cutters)

Barnyard Party Favors

You can use bandanas by opening them up and placing favors inside; such things as little plastic farm animals, farm and animal stickers, animal tattoos, animal hand puppets, etc. Then pull up the four corners and tie off with raffia.

Another cute idea is to take white lunch sacks and paint black spots on them (cow print). Then fold the top down, punch two holes in each and run raffia or ribbon with a small cowbell on it (tying it in a bow). You can then hang them on a clothesline. If you're planning on putting the favors in red bandanas, you can tie them and hang them from trees (as if apples).

Yet another idea is to use small milk pails or out of bags made out of a heavy fabric (to resemble the bags used to pack potatoes or corn) for the birthday party favors.

Barnyard Games and Activities

There are lots of great game ideas that fit perfectly with this theme party.

We've put together this complete barnyard game ideas section where you'll find detailed instruction for games such as:

The Barn is on Fire
Duck Duck Goose
Milk the Cow
Animals on the Loose
Pig Out
Animal Charades
and many more (including visitor-submitted game ideas)...

You should also read these VERY important tips to help you survive (and enjoy) game time!

Your Barnyard Parties and Ideas

Lots of visitors from around the world have contributed their party ideas to this site! Click here to see another page full with lots more visitor-submitted Barnyard birthday ideas.

We'd love for you to take a moment and submit your own Barnyard party ideas.

Some of our visitors have gone the extra mile and written up their complete Barnyard party story with photos and everything they did. We call these stories "Party Tales" and they serve as a great inspiration! Take a peek at other people's Barnyard theme Party Tales and you're sure to find lots more outstanding Barnyard party ideas:

Silvia's Barnyard Party

If you'd like share your complete party with us, then once your party is over, send us your own PARTY TALE and we'll create your very own theme party page and photo gallery that's hosted on our site! (Family, friends and just about anybody will be able to find inspiration from your child's birthday party and comment on YOUR ideas!)