Sharing Your Birds with the Public

As a person that has children as young as two years of age handling my wild caught male Amazons, here are some things that I do.

1. Train the birds to step up without using their beaks. This means having them step up thousands of times onto an arm that does not wobble or give them any reason to doubt it will not be sturdy.
2. Train the birds to keep their beaks off people. No matter how many times you try to tell a nonbird person that this is not biting, they become scared and will suddenly jerk away from the bird. They may drop and injure your bird or encourage it to bite.
3. Bring items of interest such as eggs, feathers, photos, that you are willing to have held and shared with your audience.
4. Include your children in the program by asking questions of the children. One of my favorite is to ask them how long they thing parrots like mine live. They are always eager to guess. Then I tell them about Old Polly....the Amazon that I wrote about that was 106 human years.
5. Never have a child pick a bird up.
6. Always place the bird on a person's arm and put your arm underneath theirs for support. After talking to the child and seeing how they are with my bird, I ask if they want to hold the bird by themselves. If they do, I remove my supporting arm. Some children are very shy and would need many times of holding a bird before they are ready to go solo. You do not want to single them out, so if everyone holds them with your arm underneath, it is no big deal. I always softly ask the child so that the rest of the kids do not hear me.
7. Make certain the birds nails are trim and blunt. I have the children line up to hold the birds. I ask that they roll their sleeves up so the bird sits on a bare arm. Clothing will cause the bird to slip and thus may result the bird in grabbing with his beak to keep from falling or flap his wings. Both of which can scare a nonbird child.
8. you could get bit. You don't stick your fingers in bird cages or pet birds you don't know.
9. Check the mood of the individual bird. Even a great bird can have a bad day. I have never had to pull BFA Pepper from being held but I have the Napes. They are presently at their worse years (8-12). There are days when I would not risk them on a child's arm....but Pepper has never been to the point where I couldn't use him.
10. Always stand near the bird and keep your eye on the child and bird at all times. Children can tire of things very quickly and may begin playing or moving around that could hurt your bird.
11. Keep your program moving. Children have short attention spans. Have props ready and in quick reach. You don't want to spend time searching for anything. Use and outline so you know what you are going to do and when in the program you will do it.
12. Birds that are used should be in top health and looking their best. Although my birds love to perform and being with groups of people, it is still stressful. A bird that is "off his feed" or not up to snuff should not be used as it will only make him sick.

Joanie Doss of Anchorage, Alaska, is the owner of The Amazing Amazons, a troup of performing Amazons consisting of Blue-front Amazons Pepper and Kodiak, and Yellow-nape Amazons Maggie and TJ. Joanie is also a widely-published author on all birdcare topics, and is especially expert on the topic of training.