Hello! Best Bird for Shows?

[Tyler]

Hello everyone! My name is Tyler and this is my first post here!

*yay*

I've come to this forum looking for help planning for the future so hopefully you guys are willing to lend me your thoughts and knowledge. I've looked around at a lot of websites and while there appears to be a wealth of knowledge of the subject of raising and training birds, it's very much mixed and mingled with repetitive base facts, wishy-washy opinions or too much advertising (birdtricks). I have questions that I need answers for so I figure I might as well sign up for some forums and just start asking!

I'm a kids magician from Toronto, Ontario, Canada and my act is entirely pirate themed, I want to add an animal to my show but I don't want to do rabbits (been there) or doves (too cliche). I've never owned a bird but I've decided that I want to make the commitment to owning and training a parrot as a companion and as a partner for my shows. My question is: what is the best parrot for my needs?

Here's what I want in a bird:

- must be big enough to be seen on stage in a school gym or a random festival
- must be able to flight train (i want it to fly because it's a bird and because it's great for the show)
- must be able to learn tricks (i know pretty much all birds can be trained, I'm just listing it here anyway)
- i don't really want a talker. at most i would want it to say my magic words.
- must look flashy (I'm not a fan of the mostly green birds - but i can be swayed)
- must be able to exist without other birds around
- must be social enough to have around children, but not necessarily be touched by children
- must be able to co-exist with a very tame cat
- must be fairly quiet (I mostly don't want it yelling and screaming mid-show)
- must look good on a pirate

My hope is to begin the acquisition sometime late 2015 so I have over a year to educate myself and prepare. Hopefully you guys are able to help me with that part.

So what do you think?

[Pajarita]

I think such a parrot does not exist.

[KimberlyAnn]

I was wondering what to say, that sums it up quite nicely Pajarita.

Tyler, why not train a dog? The dog could be more interactive with the children then a parrot and even wear a pirate costume. I do not know of a parrot that fits your list at all, but I can spot a few dangerous things (free flight & your cat) that could harm a parrot badly. Everyone here has heard the stories of the well trained parrot who flew away and the lazy, very tame, best friend to the parrot, cat who one day attacked. And almost all parrots are loud, and at inappropriate times. The ones that are not are either dead or they have that type of personality. Hard to tell how they will really turn out until a few years down the road.

Be the pirate with the trusty dog! You could train him to walk the plank into a pool of water. I've actually seen this done with a trained cat at a children's show when I was a child. It was not a pirate show though, but the cat jumped in. With a dog, you will be able to have your sidekick show more emotion and this will create more of a bond between you and your audience right? Get them more personally invested in the show and come back for more?

[Tyler]

Ok. Not really what I was expecting.

What bird satisfies the most of the things in my list?

I don't care about the noise or its ability to talk, those were just prefered traits.

In regards to the cat, the bird would never be out of its cage without someone there to supervise and/or the cat being in a completely different room.

For flight, how is it that people are able to train birds to fly for shows? If the risk is so high, no one would do it. I aim to dedicate all the time, practice, training and especially bonding/trust-building required to fly this bird. I will not fly it if i feel there is any risk it wont come back or be scared away. Should I aim to fly solely indoors?

Let the discussion continue! Thanks.

[Michael]

You don't really want a parrot for a magic show. Looks can be deceiving! You're far more likely to run into trouble than success. The amount of work it will take in relation to the amount of benefit you will have won't ever make it worthwhile unless you just happened to have a parrot as a pet and trained it in the long run as a hobby. Professionally, it's a disaster.


There was once a magician on a cruise ship who performed mainly sleight of hand tricks. He had a regular spot on the ship's cabaret evening entertainment. He was actually quite a good magician, but his routines were regularly ruined by the onboard parrot who would fly around squawking out and giving away his secrets like:

"IT'S UP HIS SLEEVE, IT'S UP HIS SLEEVE!"or

"IT'S IN HIS POCKET, IT'S IN HIS POCKET!"or

"IT'S IN HIS MOUTH, IT'S IN HIS MOUTH!"

The magician was getting pretty sick of this and threatened to kill the parrot if it ruined his act one more time. That evening right at the climax of his act, just as he was about to disappear in a puff of smoke, the ship hit an iceberg and sank in seconds.

Amazingly, the magician and the parrot were the only two survivors. The magician was lying on a piece of driftwood in a daze. As he opened his eyes he could see the parrot staring at him out of its beady little eye.

The parrot sat there for hours just staring at him and eventually said, "OK, I give up, what did you do with the ship?"

[Tyler]

Great joke! I will be stealing that one. *yoink!*

So do you guys believe then that there is no good bird for magic other than doves? I have seen some great stage acts using cockatoos and i know the are performers who do bird shows with macaws.

Is your greastest concern the unreliability of a bird during a show in which they are not the center of the magicians focus? Please help me understand the objections. Thanks.

[Michael]

The thing about doves and stuff like that is that they're dumb enough to just go with it, stay in a box, do what you want, and not even get too upset about it. The parrots are highly complex and social creatures. They may easily prefer to fly over to play with an audience member, fly up into the rafters above the stage, or just not perform than to necessarily do what you want. They have much more of a mind of their own. I'm not saying it's impossible but it's an entire lifestyle and something way more than just "adding animal X to your act."

[Tyler]

I want a companion and pet at home as well as for my shows. I've been getting the same negative responses on other forums so im mostly convinced against getting a bird. Its amazing what you can learn when you just ask for help!

On the plus side, i have learned a TON about clicker training and reinforcement techniques in my research so i wont be leaving my foray into parrots empty-handed!

I would still like to hear feedback from anyone else who would like to comment though! Thanks!

[Michael]

Here's why nobody wants you to do. 95% chance you get a parrot, try it, find it isn't suitable for the job you have in store, and then the bird gets dumped on someone else. Yet, the rehoming is extremely stressful on the birds and more times than not they leave their past home with more problems then when they came in. People on these forums really love parrots and they don't want to see this creature screwed over because someone wanted to provide some entertainment or make a profit. I'm not against it, but only if it's the 5% that actually sticks it out, follows through, and does a good job taking care of the bird regardless if it ever qualifies to be in a show or not.

I'd rather coach someone who happens to have a pet parrot and happens to be a stage magician to incorporate their well cared for pet into their act then to have yet another parrot go through the buy as a baby, try it on, realize it sucks having one, and then dump the bird on someone else routine. The bird will suffer more than anyone.

[Tyler]

I completely agree. My plan was to purchase the bird late 2015 and raise it for as long as needed before trying to incorporate it at all into an act. I had the expectation that it would be years before this was possible. It would be very much a pet-first, show-second. It just so happens that the end-game is what made me consider this avenue in the first place.