Coolest Barnyard Birthday Party Ideas for Your Kid's Next Birthday Celebration

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 birthday party right here on this page, so get your scrolling finger ready and start plowing down this page.

Barnyard Invitations

Here are some nice printable barnyard animal invitations that you can also use for this theme:

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)!!”

Here are more barnyard wording ideas you can use:

Come on over for fun at the farm!
Oink! Cluck! Neigh! Moo! We’re excited that Nancy’s turning 2!
Stomp on over for a Moo-velous Birthday Party!
You’re invited to Michael’s Barnyard Bash!
Farmer Trevor invites you to a rootin’ tootin’ good time down on the farm… The party’s at Walker (your last name) Barn. Rise with the rooster and be here at 10 AM… Gather round for a mighty fine time!
Down on the farm, that’s where we’ll be… to celebrate with friends and family! Cows, pigs, and chickens too… the only thing we need is you!
Wear some overalls and prepare to have bushels of fun! We’ll be pigging out on great food and birthday cake! The hoedown commences at 2’o’clock and doesn’t end until the cows come home. Help us count our chickens before they’re hatched with an RSVP.
Join Old McDarren (your kid’s name) on his farm for lots of games and fun! You’ll be humming a tune before the day is done! Be sure to come in your barnyard clothes…
Calling all cowpokes. Come on, come all, for the big birthday barnyard bash, it’s sure to be Farm-tastic! Located at the Jensen’s Coral located at (your address).
It’s a Horsin’ Around Birthday Party comin’ your way!
Old MacDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-oh! And on that farm we… will celebrate Stephanie’s 4th birthday! Yee-Haa!
With a Baaa and a Mooo and an Oink, Oink too… Jessie wants to celebrate his birthday with you!
We’re celebrating Jacob’s 3rd birthday down on the farm, join us for a party at the Big Red Barn!
Cock-a-doodle TWO!!

Here are printable barn invitations you can print out. 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 place a small amount of hay and kernels of dried corn. You can address each envelope to “Farmer Smith” (each kid’s last name).

Another idea is to write the birthday party information on yellow or red gingham paper, which fits really nice with this birthday party theme. You can also write the party information on a bandana using a fabric or permanent marker. If you don’t want to write on the bandanas, just tie a note with raffia to a rolled up bandana. Ask the kids to bring the bandanas to the party so that they can wear them and get into the barnyard spirit. You can also invite the guests to come in barnyard attire (overalls, checkered and flannel shirts, jeans, etc.).

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.

You can put pictures of barnyard animals all around the birthday party area. You can also cut out animal footprints and put them on the path leading to the birthday party area. Here are some great printable barnyard decorations to decorate the party area with:

See All Barnyard Decorations

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 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.

On the birthday party tables you can use red-checkered tablecloths or animal-print fabric. You can use small terra cotta plant holders decorated with a bandana around the top edge to hold silverware and rustic-looking centerpieces.

You can set out hay bales for seating (place red-checkered cloth or two bandanas diagonally on top of each hay bale to make it more comfortable to sit on and also to make it look nice).

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.

If you have any wheelbarrows or any wagons fill them with hay. Put baskets of white rubber or foam eggs and milk bottles 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 and decorate with wood crates, cowboy boots, and big burlap sacks. You can also put horse saddles on bales of hay for the kids to pretend they’re riding a horse.

Bandanas could be used as napkins (tie with rope or raffia). It’s nice to use a lot of raffia for decoration as it gives that farm-ish rustic look. Check out these printable barnyard placecards and napkin holders.

On each of the placecards you can write each guest’s name by adding “Farmer” before their name (for example: “Farmer Doug”).

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. Another cool decoration is to fill little pools with water and have rubber duckies floating in it.

Use the raffia to tie balloons to anything. For birthday party balloons you can use bandana printed 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.

For entertainment it’s nice to have a farm CD playing in the background during the birthday party; music always adds to the excitement. Here’s a whole page full of Barnyard kid songs you can teach the kids.

Costumes

Our coolest homemade costumes site has lots of Barnyard party ideas for costumes. Check out all of the homemade Barnyard costumes your kid or any of the adults may like to wear for the party:

Take a look at all the coolest homemade Barnyard 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.

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.

Also check out the following printable barnyard cone hats you can print out and wear:

All you have to do with the above printable hats, is print them out, cut around the half circle, roll each of them up, staple, and staple on flexible string to both sides of the cone so that guests can secure the hats around their chin.

Barnyard Icebreaker and Craft Activities

Cow Bell Necklaces

A nice craft the kids can do while waiting for everyone to arrive is to create cow bell necklaces. You’ll need string or twine, little cow bells, and big beads. Show the kids how to string the beads and cow bells onto the string/twine and once they’re done tie around their necks.

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.

Farm Rides

You’ll need a few adults to help you with this. Fill a wheelbarrow and/or wagon with a pillow and some hay and give the kids rides. The kids will love this! If more than one fit in a wagon/wheelbarrow than there can be rides for a few kids at a time. If you really want to go all out, check your area for pony rides that come to your party for a few hours, the kids can then take turns and ride a pony, definite excitement! If you can’t find any pony rides in your area, how about giving the kids a few wooden horses (horse heads connected to sticks), and let the kids make-believe they’re riding a horse.

Animal Masks

Here are some great masks the kids can color in, wear and then take home as a favor:

Animal Cookies

Let the kids decorate animal cookies. Set out cookies (that are already cut in animal shapes – cow, duck, pig, chicken, etc.), bowls of icing, sprinkles, and other creative toppings on the table and let the kids loose to decorate their very own animal cookies.

Color Activity and Decoration

For an icebreaker activity the kids love to draw, paint, color, etc. Set out a table with lots of colors and paints and let the kids draw their own barnyard scene. You can also give them coloring pages to color in. After the kids are done painting, take each of their drawings and with a clothe-pin attach them to twine string (have the twine string hung tight from two sides of the party area – just like a clothe-hanging string). This garland will really add to the party’s decorations and the kids will love to see their drawings hung up for display.

Homemade Barnyard Cakes

Check out these cool Barnyard and Barn 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.

Take a look at all the coolest homemade Barnyard birthday cakes.

A simple barnyard cake idea is to 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 onto popsicle sticks and stick them in the birthday party cupcakes.

For an easy farming scene cake – 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.

Another idea is to create a dirt cake – 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 cake ideas that can easily fit the barnyard theme.

Barnyard Party Food and Drink

Ideas for Barnyard Birthday Party Food:

French Flies (fries)
Farmer’s Market Platter – a fruit and veggie platter
Hay Piles – piles of french fries (or macaroni and cheese, pasta, etc.)
Pig Tail Pasta Salad – a salad made with spiral pasta
Chicken Littles – chicken nuggets
Cow’s Cud – spinach dip
Oink Oink – baked ham
Gobble Gobble – turkey links
Cluck Cluck – fried chicken
Potato Salad
Baked potatoes
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Corn on the cob
Fresh Green Beans
Cole Slaw
Baked Beans
Dill Pickles
Corn Bread
It would really fit this birthday party theme to have a BBQ – hamburgers, chicken drumsticks and wings, etc.
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 the croissants back up 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).
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 or even take a wheelbarrow, fill with soft drinks and cover with ice.

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)
Candy Apples
Moo Cream (Ice Cream)
Smores (marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers)
Trail mix
Hay (Pretzel Sticks)
Cow Tails (beef-jerky sticks)
Jell-O Jigglers (cut with animal-shaped cookie cutters)
Apples with worms – A fun idea is to take gummy worms, cut each in half, then put a toothpick into each half and the other side of the toothpick stick into an apple… it gives the illusion of a worm coming out of the apple! (just remember to tell everyone to take out the toothpick before eating the apple and gummy worm)

Barnyard Party Favors

We’ve created these printable and foldable barnyard favor bags and favor boxes. They are blank and so the kids can decorate and fold them themselves. You can also print them out on different-colored paper, possibly the color/s of your child’s barnyard theme party.

We’ve created large favor bags, medium favor bags, and favor-boxes for you to print out:

See All Homemade Barnyard Favorbox and Favorbags

For the favor box and medium favor bags – print, color if needed (or print on colored paper) and cut out. Before you start gluing the favor box, fold along the dotted lines and assemble so that all the sides connect. Only then add glue and secure the folded flaps.

To create the large favor bags you’ll need to print out TWO designs for one favor bag. First, cut along the lines and fold along the dotted lines. Then, connect the two so that the left side of one is glued to the right side of the other.

Another cool idea is to use bandanas to hold all the favors. You do this by opening them up, placing favors inside and then pulling up each of the four corners and tying with raffia.

Here are ideas for the types of favors you can put inside: animal crackers, little plastic farm animals, farm and animal stickers, animal tattoos, animal hand puppets, bubbles, animal magnets, animal keychains, rubber duckies, farm stamps, animal FEED (take little burlap bags and fill with Chex Mix, then tie with raffia), toy tractors, etc.

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 and green 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.

The following printables are thank-you notes you can print out and send to each guest:

On the blank thank-you notes you can write: “Oink, Quack, Cock-a-doodle doo!! Old McBobby thanks MOO!”. If you take pictures of each of the guests in their farmer attire, attach a picture to their thank-you note.

Barnyard Games and Activities

There are lots of great game ideas that fit perfectly with the barnyard birthday 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

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:

Share your kid birthday party ideas here…

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