Does anyone else use any other animals besides doves and rabbits? I use goldfish and rabbits and was thinking about using fancy mice in my show. Maybe another small rodent... I have my own party place so I wouldn't bring them for traveling shows. Just wondering what else people used as far as live animals go...

Guinea pigs, snakes, dogs, cats, Lions, Tigers, Mountain Lions.

You use all those in your show??

I used a hamster once. It bit me.

Kameron, I took your question as being general and not looking for specifics. Bill responded with animals that others have used. He left out ducks, elephants, horses, chickens, parakeets, parrots and macaws. I think the bottom line is that just about any animal can be used. It's just up to your imagination and common sense.

There's a magician that uses an armadillo in his act.

What's his name

I think he means the late Parker Swan.

Parker did some great stuff. He was also a "character"! If I remember, at the end of his lecture, he announced that his notes were FREE! Jay Marshall rushed up, and was handed an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of peper with "musical notes" on it!

His lecture was titled: 'How to Force a Watermelon". (The "big" trick was "finding a card in an impossible location" (a WATERMELON) After the mess of digging into the watermelon, the spectator was given the pieces of watermelon, as a souvenir!

He also had a gag about an armadillo. He had found a stuffed armadillo in a tourist souvenir shop in the Carribean. The armadillo was a "stuffed" dead little beast that had its head "biting its tail". the tail made a crude handle for the body which looked a bit like a basket.

Parker exhibited the "basket" and, described how he planned to get a live armadillo and teach it to hold its tail in its mouth. On cue, the armadillo would let go of its tail, and "come alive". I don't think that he ever found a live armadillo that was either "teachable or trainable"!

There's a great and funny story about Harry Blackstone (pere) and the DISAPPEARING HORSE! (I wasn't there! George Boston tells about it in his "Inside Magic".)

The horse was led onstage, and, just before he was led into the huge cabinet, the horse did what horses "do", naturally! Someone in the balcony shouted: "OK, Mr magician! Make THAT disappear!" George didn't record what Blackstone said!!!

Circus elephant are "trained" to do "THAT", in the back yard, just before entering the big top for their act. I caught an indoor circus, about 30 years ago in North Dakota. The show was playing in an Armory, on a concrete floor. The young guy, who was the elephant groom, was a "First 'o' May". He had WATERED THE ELEPHANTS (all three of them) BEFORE the show. Just as the act began, one of the "girls" had an "urge". She answered the call of nature! Elephants are social animals! The other two, suddenly had similar "urges"! The circus ring "became" an effective dam!

The performer "working" the act, was ankle deep. Fortunately,the elephant act was the show closer. Following THAT, would have been like TRYING to follow "Garray & Tomio"!!!

I never fed my doves BEFORE the show! (I had a line, if anything "happened" during the act!)

I wonder if anyone has used bears

Hey Dick, I'll leave this one up to you. You've been in this business a little longer than I have. I can't believe the question was even asked. Maybe we could start using alligators, whales and sea lions. Maybe if we could catch him, we could use big foot. I think he could be classified as an animal LOL

No offense Kyoki. This just seemed to be way out there.

IIRC!!! Harry Blackstone Senior, once used a BEAR (costume) in the closing "double exchange" illusion, that was usually titled "Who wears the whiskers?" in the printed program.

I saw the show a half dozen times in the '40s, and, sometimes it's hard to remember all of the details.

I know that Mr. B. produced a live GOAT in the '30s. I have a photo from one of the souvenir programs. It was the opening trick. Harry showed a big foulard. (In the picture it must 6' square!) He held it in front of himself, It touched the floor. Then, he whipped it away, and the goat was standing there!

BTW...it was a b-dy load. No! It wasn't an invsbl harness!

Hrmnn....just acquired a corn snake and have been pondering ways to humanely include him in the act.

Now you can do the Serpentine Silk, WITHOUT A SILK!

LOL, I'll have to work that one out!

It would be a REELly good trick!

I have used snakes in my shows for years. Every one of my kids shows has at least one snake in it. I use both corn snakes and ball pythons as they are the prefect sides for dove pans, circus wagons, duck buckets, etc.

I also use hissing cockroaches, emperor scorpions, tarantulas, and giant millipedes in my programs at various times.

I love them all and they are much easier to travel with than dives and rabbits in my experience.

As a teenager, working in a carnie side show, I did magic, fire eating, and also "lectured on" the big python (about 12 feet). I would have needed a wash tub size dove pan!

I just remembered a magician in California who produced a "handful" of LIVE RATTLESNAKES from a dove pan. He closed the act with that! When the local magic club did a public show, Al always CLOSED THE SHOW. NOBODY could follow him!

His name was Al, and, I can't remember his last name. He was on the cover of GENII in the early '50s. Ha had been one of Jay Marshall's agents, in the NYC area, when Jay was starting out..I met Al when I was playing schools around Bakersfield, California, in the mid '80s. Maybe someone from that area can tell us his name.

I saw him do the dove pan rattlesnake bit in a ring public show. It was a shocker! I think it would have been hilarious to watch him LOADING the FOUR rattlers in the pan!

He invited me to his home to get better acquainted. He had a "den" in his garage, and, we sat there to visit. When I say "den", I mean it! WE were surrounded by cages full of SNAKES! RATTLERS!, a COBRA, a good sized PYTHON, and, of course, a large cage full of mice.

He said that his rattlers often bit him when he did the trick! He was also a herpetologist who did an educational lecture on his "pets". He had performed a 'ductectomy" on the snakes in the dove pan. They "had" no poison. He said that the little beasts would strike, and he would bleed, but their bite was harmless!

That reminds me...Fran Marshall, had a customer, years ago, who used a dove pan to produce snakes. She had a picture, I think it was in one of the KID STUFF BOOKS. The picture shows the guy with dove pan in hand, and a snake.

Y'know, I think I have an old beat-up dove pan laying around somewhere. I wonder how comfortable Ember would be in it...

A large dove pan is perfect for an adult corn snake. I'm using a blizzard corn with dove pan in my show all this summer. Great combination.