Avian Training Workshop 2014

World Bird Sanctuary will be hosting its hugely popular Avian Training Workshop Thursday, October 30-Sunday, November 2nd, 2013.

If you've considered attending the World Bird Sanctuary Avian Training Workshop in the past but couldn’t work it into your schedule, now is your chance to plan ahead.   There's still plenty of time to arrange your schedule and take advantage of the early registration bonus!  Save $100 by registering before October 1st!

The classroom sessions cover a multitude of subjects

What is an Avian Training Workshop you may ask?  

The WBS Avian Training Workshop is an intensive 4-day workshop, which covers all aspects of housing, training, feeding and caring for raptors, parrots, corvids, and many other species.  The workshop includes both classroom and hands-on training.

You may have the opportunity to participate in emergency medical care of a patient

Subjects covered in the classroom section include:  

*  Establishing your own program--permits, insurance, facilities, staff & volunteers

*  Working with and training your bird--manning and positive reinforcement, desensitizing

*  Choosing the correct species to work with

*  Transportation--crates, permits, driving, flying, shipping

*  Housing--mews, jumpboxes, A-frames, flight cages, climate, hotwiring enclosures, substrates

*  Perch types--bow, platform, screen, etc.--which perch works best for which species

*  Diets--food types, frozen vs. live, storage, prep, raising food colonies, vitamins

*  Training your birds for flying--weight management, base weights, target weights, flyer food

Everybody's favorite--learn to fly a raptor

Everybody's favorite--the hands-on section:

Our staff believes the only way to learn is through the hands-on experience of doing things yourself.  At our workshop you will have the opportunity to actually do the following:

*  Make jesses & anklets

*  Practice imping feathers

*  Experience coping and trimming of a raptor

*  Participate in simple public speaking games and learn how different elements make you a better public speaker

*  Fly a Harris' Hawk and/or Barn Owl with WBS staff

*  Help train a new behavior with a Raven or crow (continues throughout the workshop)

*  "Be the Bird" in our training game

*  Participate in emergency medical care and do a gross necropsy on a raptor

The workshop also includes an extensive tour of WBS' facilities and opportunities to see birds and housing in use and up close.

RESERVATIONS REQUIRED.  Workshop has a minimum of 10 participants and a maximum of 25.

WHEN:  Thursday, Oct. 30 through Sunday, Nov. 2

EARLY REGISTRATION:  Sign up by October 1st - Cost - $650/person

LATE REGISTRATION:  Sign up after October 1st - Cost - $750/person

$100 non-refundable deposit required by 10/01/13 for early registration, balance due by 10/15/13.

Registration fee includes lunch each day.

Transportation to and from St. Louis, hotel accommodations and breakfast & dinner are the responsibility of each participant.

To download a registration form CLICK HERE

Further questions?  Contact Melissa Moore, 636-225-4390, ext. 0 or email workshop@worldbirdsanctuary.org