No admission charge and everything priced a la carte, which makes it the lowest-risk farm on our Clermont County list for a family with a toddler — and one of the more expensive ones if you buy every ride.
Shaw Farms has no admission charge. Individual activities priced a la carte: corn maze $9.00, horse hayrides $8.00, tractor hayrides $6.00, pedal karts (ages 7+) $4.00, Little Blue Train $4.00. Children under 2 free for all paid activities.
Free to walk in. Your spend here is whatever you choose — pumpkins, food, and any paid activities. That makes it a low-risk stop if you are not sure how long the kids will last.
Shaw Farms charges nothing to walk in, and that changes the whole calculation of a visit. The playgrounds, the farm animals and the market are all available to someone who has spent no money at all. Everything else is a separate purchase: the corn maze at $9, a horse hayride at $8, a tractor hayride at $6, pedal karts at $4 for ages 7 and up, and the Little Blue Train at $4.
For a family with a toddler, that structure is worth a lot. The standard fall-festival risk is paying $60 at a gate and discovering fifteen minutes later that today is not the day. Here the downside of a failed outing is a wasted drive and nothing else.
The flip side is real. A family of four that wants the maze and a tractor hayride is at $60 before pumpkins, which is more than a single all-inclusive ticket costs at several farms within half an hour of here. Add the train and the karts and you are past $90 with four separate transactions behind you.
So the honest positioning is that Shaw Farms is excellent value at the low end and unremarkable value at the high end. Decide in the car park which version you are doing. The failure mode with a la carte pricing is not any single price — it is agreeing to each one individually and adding them up on the drive home.
The $2 gap between the horse and tractor hayrides is worth a moment’s thought too. Two rides look similar from a distance to a four-year-old. Eight dollars a head across a family of four is $32 against $24 for something the children may not distinguish.
The farm publishes daily hours — 9am to 6pm Monday to Saturday, 9am to 5pm Sunday, weather permitting — and no fall dates. That is the one thing worth a phone call.
It matters at both ends of the season. Early in September the pumpkins and the maze may not be ready. Late in October the maze is at the mercy of the crop and the weather; in Ohio the corn is real and a maze cut into it does not survive frost and harvest indefinitely. A farm with a posted end date tells you when to stop planning around it. This one does not, so ask.
The weather-permitting note on the published hours is also more than boilerplate for an operation that is mostly outdoors on a working farm. A wet Sunday in late October is the sort of day where a call before leaving saves a wasted hour.
Open daily, Monday to Saturday 9am to 6pm and Sunday 9am to 5pm, weather permitting. The farm does not publish fall-specific start or end dates for the pumpkin season or the corn maze, so the calendar is the one real gap here. Weekday mornings are the obvious pick: same free entry, same market, and no queue for the maze or the hayride. If you are aiming for late October, ask about the maze when you call — Ohio corn mazes are cut into a real crop and come down when the crop does.
An hour if you are buying pumpkins and looking at the animals. Two to three if you are paying for the maze, a hayride and the kart or train rides.
Daily opening across the season spreads visitors better than a weekends-only operation. October Saturdays are still the peak, and the hayrides are where the queue forms.
Not published. Expect a farm lot rather than asphalt, and expect it to be soft after autumn rain.
You want an all-inclusive wristband day. Paying separately for each activity means a family that wants to do everything will spend more here than at a farm with a single ticket, and you will be at a till several times. Skip it too if your children are under 7 and set on the pedal karts, which carry an age minimum.
Entry is free. Activities are charged individually: corn maze $9, horse hayride $8, tractor hayride $6, pedal karts $4 and the Little Blue Train $4. Children under 2 are free for the paid activities.
Walk in, use the playgrounds, look at the animals and buy a pumpkin. That costs nothing beyond the pumpkin. The paid rides are entirely optional and are where the money goes.
Yes — the farm lists the pedal karts as ages 7 and over. Younger children have the Little Blue Train at the same $4.
2026 dates had not been published when we last checked. In past seasons it has run: Daily. Check with the farm before driving out.
Admission is free. Shaw Farms has no admission charge. Individual activities priced a la carte: corn maze $9.00, horse hayrides $8.00, tractor hayrides $6.00, pedal karts (ages 7+) $4.00, Little Blue Train $4.00. Children under 2 free for all paid activities.
1737 Ohio 131, Milford, OH 45150, in Clermont County. It is one of 9 patches we track in Southwest Ohio.
We track 9 patches in Southwest Ohio, 2 of which are free to walk into. Entry here costs nothing, which puts it in the minority even in a region with several free options.
What sets it apart locally: it has rides and play structures, a market, bakery or taproom, which most Southwest Ohio patches on our list do not.
One caveat worth repeating: this farm had not published its 2026 dates when we last checked, while 6 of the 9 patches we track in Southwest Ohio had. Treat any date you see elsewhere as last year's until the farm confirms it.
Map pin is set to the town centre. Navigate to the street address above, not the pin.
shawfarmmarket.com
Checked August 2026.