# For those who have an "animal encounters" business...



## genevie (Jul 12, 2011)

Would you mind answering this survey for me? After seeing so many people with encounters businesses (with a focus on mammals) recently, I've become more and more interested in them and it's made me curious about a few things - _though I don't even have my first exotic mammal yet, so it's not something I could be looking to do at this time!_. I've put it in survey form so people can answer anonymously 

Link Here: Animal Encounters survey


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## mrcriss (Nov 2, 2010)

Whilst I don't mind talking about various aspects of the business with others interested in starting up, there are some very personal questions on that survey, so I won't be filling it in I'm afraid.


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## genevie (Jul 12, 2011)

mrcriss said:


> Whilst I don't mind talking about various aspects of the business with others interested in starting up, there are some very personal questions on that survey, so I won't be filling it in I'm afraid.


No worries, I've already had quite a few varied responses, but all the questions are optional just FYI  I'm the kind of person who gets one idea in their head and then wants to know every possible thing about it (which is one reason why I enjoy researching exotic mammals!), so that's why there are so many questions, if anyone just wants to answer a couple I'd still be interested. :2thumb:


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## mrcriss (Nov 2, 2010)

What concerns me about the many many encounter businesses that are starting up is the lack of apparent care about safety. People just think it's a fun way to make money, and cut corners, giving the rest of us a dreadfully bad name.

Well first off, there isn't a lot of money to be made out of this......it's hardly possible to fully support yourself and your animals on this kind of income alone as there is so much competition.

It seems that each business is trying to outdo each other with more and more exotic mammals. It's scary that people are actually taking coatis into close proximity with children!:gasp: Mark my words, it's only a matter of time before there's a serious accident involving a kid at one of these shows, and then the press will hang us all out to dry.

I've even heard of companies _without insurance!_ 

Someone said to me the other day: "My first concern is to the animals". And they let people like that do this work unregulated??? Their first concern should be the safety of the kids watching the show!

As a result of this need to get the most exotic mammals, the classifieds are chock full of people rehoming their animals when they've realised that they're wholly unsuitable for use with the business. How can people do this? If we are there to promote the responsible keeping of exotics, how can it be acceptable to pass animals around like this?

My advice if you're really dead set on doing this would be to think very carefully about what animals you use, and make sure that any animal you do use is covered by your public liability insurance.

As a result of witnessing these worrying and ugly sides to the industry, I'll be quitting very soon.


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## Loderuna (Mar 9, 2010)

A friend of mine attended an event at a local library. A guy was handling a 13 foot snake ALONE and it's tail swished around and knocked my friend's 3yo daughter around the head. As you can imagine, the poor child was terrified by the experience. This is just one example of how there are people who are not taking safety seriously. I couldn't believe it when my friend told me about this, as it seemed like sheer stupidity for a single person to be handling such a snake, let alone in a public library full of toddlers! :bash:


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## mrkeda (Nov 6, 2012)

Loderuna said:


> A friend of mine attended an event at a local library. A guy was handling a 13 foot snake ALONE and it's tail swished around and knocked my friend's 3yo daughter around the head. As you can imagine, the poor child was terrified by the experience. This is just one example of how there are people who are not taking safety seriously. I couldn't believe it when my friend told me about this, as it seemed like sheer stupidity for a single person to be handling such a snake, let alone in a public library full of toddlers! :bash:


You don't keep or know much about snakes do you?


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## Loderuna (Mar 9, 2010)

mrkeda said:


> You don't keep or know much about snakes do you?


I know enough to know that a sensible person would have completed a risk assessment and come to the conclusion that a single adult handling a 13 foot snake around a group of toddlers is not the thing to do. In a previous workplace, three capable people were required to handle a 10ft boa.


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## mrcriss (Nov 2, 2010)

mrkeda said:


> You don't keep or know much about snakes do you?


I don't quite understand this. Whenever something unexpected happens to a small child, it could easily get upset.....especially if that accident involves something as alien as a giant snake! Hardly promotes reptiles in a positive light, does it? 

So I really don't get that comment. Doesn't matter whether she keeps snakes or not....can still see the guy was behaving unprofessionally! Snakey people take liberties with safety all too often, because a lot of them think they're super competent if they can handle a giant snake all by themselves. We've all seen it. Anything with that kind of power around tiny tots is a bit daft.

*EDIT* But to get back to topic, I trust reptiles around kids over most exotic mammals ANYDAY! Mammals are far more unpredictable.



Loderuna said:


> I know enough to know that a sensible person would have completed a risk assessment and come to the conclusion that a single adult handling a 13 foot snake around a group of toddlers is not the thing to do. In a previous workplace, three capable people were required to handle a 10ft boa.


Unfortunately, sensible people are few and far between.


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## Middleton Mouse (May 16, 2013)

Filled in the survey but didn't answer a few of the questions. Had difficulty with the "worst animal for handling" question so had popped in "skittish inverts" which I don't offer for handling anyway. 

Occurs to me I could also have put in rabbits as I always seemed to hurt my back crawling around with them on the floor. We don't use rabbits now as from my pair only the male was comfortable with being shown and we lost him last year. 

The small reptiles I use work very well, we have two corn snakes, a hog island boa, leo and crestie. Also inverts like stick insects, giant snails, hissing cockroaches and millipedes go down well. We adopted a milk snake hoping we could use him but if he doesn't calm down a bit then it won't be possible. Won't be parting with him though. 

The only mammals we use now are domestic rats, they were bought from a breeder and handled from a day old so are quite happy to meet people. Can't really think of anything else I'd trust in the mammal dept.

I'd have all the animals anyway so as long as we make enough to cover our insurance and disclosures all is well.


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## Ian and Amy Dorset (May 29, 2012)

Totally agree with Mrcriss. We run our own, very resposible encounters business & would never take risks with any child or one of our animals. For this reason we are very serious about the types of animals we keep & how they re used. Our only non-herps are the barn owl, APH, and a pair of micro ferrets. They are all our pets & kept to the very highest standards with no corners cut and no expense spared. 
I also hope that there is not soon an incident to ruin business for those responsible members of us who enjoy promoting correct handling, reptile knowledge etc at these displays. 
An example is that I know a recently started company (not near us) who I have seen pictures with each child at the even all holding a different animal AT ONCE!! One child with a sub-adult boa round his neck next to a child with a leopard gecko on her shoulder, amongst others too. How can any handler possibly be in control of so many (potentially dangerous) animals and children at the same time? Very scary. 
Be intrigued also to hear opinions on handling of arachnids.? We hear of so many who will letvthe children handle them - which our insurance would now allow, but we choose never allow gandling of any tarantula or scorpion. Just not worth the risk. Have they seen the fangs on a tarantula and the damage a bit can cause? To a tiny childs hand? (And 'it is friendly' is a 
ridiculous excuse. It is a tarantula).


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## vukic (Apr 9, 2010)

I keep scorpions and most advice I've seen is not to handle them... But I keep them for their behavior and visual appeal.. Plus I don't think I'd trust someone's kid handling a scorp or T... Children are unpredictable at the best of time's... Without having a scorp or T involved.. 

Tiger

Sent from my LT18i using Tapatalk 2


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## mrcriss (Nov 2, 2010)

Sometimes I use a tarantula or scorpion, but they remain securely in the box. This is where skills in storytelling come into play to hold the kids' interest. My insurance doesn't allow the handling of them (would have been much more expensive), but I know of plenty of companies that do it.....I wonder if they paid the extra?:whistling2:

I think also the handler needs to think about the safety of the animal in these cases.....it doesn't take much for a child to suddenly change their mind and then they just drop the animal, which in this case, could easily kill it.

My insurance forbids me to use spiders, scorpions, poisonous amphibians and strangely, ferrets! They must have had so many incidents with ferrets from other companies, that they were added to the list.

My worry is that people get a forbidden list like this and then think "well they never said anything about my pet afrock/caimen/tiger" and just start using more and more crazy animals.


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## mrcriss (Nov 2, 2010)

Also, to the OP, while I remember....._I can't stress enough_ the importance of "auditioning" the animals that you choose to use.

If you just take the "I want to use a boa, so that one will do" approach, then in my opinion, that's a recipe for disaster! You need to make sure that every animal you decide to use is *absolutely bombproof!*

This could mean going to view 10 different boas/skunks/whatever, before you find that rare special one that could undertake this kind of work.

I "auditioned" SO many animals to get together my lot. It meant really annoying a lot of sellers too and being branded a timewaster! But remember that just because you are going to someone's house, you're not obligated to buy if the animal is not completely perfect and suited to being in a classroom full of kids.


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## Chris Newman (Apr 23, 2007)

genevie said:


> Would you mind answering this survey for me? After seeing so many people with encounters businesses (with a focus on mammals) recently, I've become more and more interested in them and it's made me curious about a few things - _though I don't even have my first exotic mammal yet, so it's not something I could be looking to do at this time!_. I've put it in survey form so people can answer anonymously
> 
> Link Here: Animal Encounters survey


Your timing on asking for such a detailed questionnaire is unfortunate as the industry is currently under the spotlight (for all the wrong reasons). You will probably find it difficult to get responses from the more established and responsible sector of the industry!


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## feorag (Jul 31, 2007)

Ian and Amy Dorset said:


> Be intrigued also to hear opinions on handling of arachnids.? We hear of so many who will letvthe children handle them - which our insurance would now allow, but we choose never allow gandling of any tarantula or scorpion. Just not worth the risk. Have they seen the fangs on a tarantula and the damage a bit can cause? To a tiny childs hand? (And 'it is friendly' is a ridiculous excuse. It is a tarantula).


Must admit I was appalled to be shown a photograph of a friend's 4 year old boy at one of these "animal parties" with a tarantula on his head!

No way would I even think of doing anything like that with any child! To me that sort of handling is totally irresponsible.


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## BMo1979 (Feb 13, 2012)

feorag said:


> Must admit I was appalled to be shown a photograph of a friend's 4 year old boy at one of these "animal parties" with a tarantula on his head!
> 
> No way would I even think of doing anything like that with any child! To me that sort of handling is totally irresponsible.


Reminds me of the animal encounter company that were at my boys' old school fayre:
Amongst many other animals they also had a Chilean Rose T. My oldest went to hold it, the woman just put it on his hand and then walked away :gasp: to sort out other children, leaving my son stuck with the tarantula on his hand. I ended up gently guiding it back into its tank.
They were also (probably illegally) selling baby rats and rabbits under the counter and the animals had no retreat during the whole day. I spoke to the school about my concerns, but we moved house not long after so I don't know what, if anything came out of it.


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## feorag (Jul 31, 2007)

See, that's the sort of people who get the responsible animal encounters people a bad name. For the 'T's sake she should never have walked away and left it with your son, as she had no knowledge of his experience. If he had dropped the 'T' there's every possibility it would have died - didn't she care??

And as far as selling 'under the counter' that's just out of order on every level! :bash:


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## Middleton Mouse (May 16, 2013)

I don't allow kids to handle arachnids, they're too unpredictable in my opinion and a short drop could easily kill a tarantula.


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## duffey1 (Aug 24, 2012)

Genevie,

The Dutch animal keepers were asked to fill out a questionnaire several years ago - and then found that the information they had supplied in good faith is now being used as the basis of the 'restricted' lists being imposed under Dutch law!

You may have a genuine motive - but I would suggest that anyone tempted to complete the questionnaire should think long and hard - and then resist the temptation!

If you want information - ask the people offering animal encounters, not put forward a document based on material used by Antis!


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## genevie (Jul 12, 2011)

Sorry I haven't been responding to this thread, I've been a little busy  Have been taking in all the replies though!

Duffey, I understand why people might be apprehensive to answer if that's happened in the past, but I can assure you I haven't spent years on this forum and others pretending to be an animal enthusiast just for the sake of this one survey :/ So I'd really appreciate it if you didn't tell people to resist answering tbh. 

If you're questioning my agenda, feel free to look at the many posts I've made on this forum and on many of the exotic pet groups on Facebook, I'm clearly not a government official, reporter or anything like that. I'm simply a normal animal lover like most of the people here.

It's much easier for me to get a good look at a variety of opinions by offering a survey, and it also means it's anonymous and no one has to give out any information they don't want or feel compelled to answer. (especially given that all the questions are optional), so I personally prefer the use of a survey to asking people straight up. Though surely if I was using this information for questionable means it wouldn't matter if I used a survey or asked people directly :/


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## Uromastyxman (Jan 28, 2009)

mrkeda said:


> You don't keep or know much about snakes do you?


Could you explain what part of her post was wrong


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## Talk To The Animals (Jan 10, 2008)

Mrcriss, which insurers do you use? We use a company that will cover all the animals we choose to use, which includes tarantulas, scorpions and ferrets, and will allow public, supervised handling off all our animals, for a very reasonable fee! Fwiw, we don't allow public handling of our tarantulas or scorpions, but its handy for the odd face your phobia session.


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## mrcriss (Nov 2, 2010)

Not naming names.....talking about the business/money side of things isn't something I do on open forums, or random questionnaires for that matter. 

I could have paid the extra premiums to handle those animals, but was just unnecessary expense. Not that it matters, because I wouldn't use 'em anyway. I reckon that allowing the public to handle T's and S's is a bit of a silly thing to do tbh. 'Phibs suffer from loads of handling, and although I've kept ferrets, they just wouldn't fit into my show scripts.....plus in this part of the country, every other household has bloody ferrets!


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