Cups and balls with the baby chicks ending is a cool thing. Ross Bertram Francis Carlyle, John Scarne, John Booth, Galli Galli and many others have used this as an ending for the cups and balls. Dai Vernon did it with baby ducks and that and a story is talked about in the Vernon Chronicles page 221 volume 4.

I thought about doing the cups and balls with baby chicks when I was booked to do one of my first night club shows on the stage at Bit O Magic in Chicago many years ago.

At the time I was still filling in time at my fathers magic shop and I lived at home. I was booked for the first week of March and it was the end of January and the date was getting closer and closer.

About a week from the performing date I decided to get the chicks and start practicing. So I went to a feed store close to my home and the chicks were way to big. They would not fit in the cups.

I looked at a cage next to the chick cage and saw three little birds in the cage that would fit into the cups.

I asked the feed store man… “What are those three birds?”

“They are button quail,” he said.
“How big do they get?” I asked?
“They are full grown.” He said.

So I got the birds and drove home. I was excited I was off from the magic shop the whole day and I could practice loading a live bird all afternoon. I got home and put out my close up mat. Set up the cups. Pined the load bag for the birds in my sport coat…

I opened the box to get the birds and found out that button quail can fly…

So I loaded oranges instead.

But later I worked out a burned bill in the orange routine to follow the cups and balls. So things worked out!

And that is my cups and balls baby chick story…

Glenn Bishop
http://www.mrhypnotist.org

You should have hypnotized 'em.

Glenn,

You gave me a good laugh. Thanks!

Ron

I was thinking when I drove home that I made a good buy. The button quail were full grown and I wouldn't have had the problem with them out growing the cups. As you would if you loaded baby chicks.

Button quail can fly and fly fast.

It took me three or four hours to catch them and get them back into the box.

I laugh every time I think about it.

Best ahead,

Glenn Bishop

Any reason why you couldn't clip their wings as most parkeet owners do with their pets?

When we first got our Cockatiel his wings were clipped until he was finger tame. After that it wasn't necessary.

Button quail are very small very fast birds. I had used doves and used to clip the wings on the doves a little bit. But because the wings were so small I decided not to clip them.

They also jump and run really fast on the ground. That is one of the reasons that they were so hard to catch. They were going under the sofa and chairs.

I felt like the cat chasing Tweety in a Loony Toons cartoon...

It was a riot.

Glenn Bishop

That story made my morning. I am still laughing.It reminds me of my first few times doing a dove pan out doors for a kids show and my dove flew into a tree.I set the kids in a circle and put the rabbit down for them to pet so I could climb the tree in my tux to get my dove down only to have the kids let the rabbit out of thier circle. Now I am chasing a rabbit down the street in my tux only to have the kids follow me scaring the rabbit even worse.Boy didn't I look profesional.
I thought that was over till 2 years later I take my daughter to get braces and the receptionist says hey you are that magician that did my granddaughters birthday that had to chase his animals all over.
I love these stories.
Shawn D

This is second only to Dai Vernon's monkey story. I can't even repeat that here.

Share please^^

I have heard horror stories about this.

Like they use to shake them, and get them dizzy and in shock so they can be controlled.

The other was that they super glued their beaks so that they couldn't chirp.

Now it's probably all crap, but that's what I heard.

Randi

It's in one of the Vernon books that was published by L&L. I can't tell it here.

Posted: Nov 10, 2011 2:22am
They didn't have superglue back then, Randi.

Galli-Galli used to kill them after the show. He stopped up the toilets at the Rice Hotel iu 1957. That's why he never performed at an IBM convention after that.

Yes, I am aware of the origins of super glue.

I just didn't make it clear that that was someone else.
I just put the two stories together for ease.

Besides, I was just repeating what I have heard.

Randi