Are Opossums Misunderstood?

[McChooky]

I had to seal a couple holes in a catio to get rid of a bunch of possums here.They slept hanging by their tails in the trees beside the chicken coop at night .Waiting on me to forget and leave a door open at night? Probably. Don't say nobody warned you

 

[Folly's place]

We've lost birds to opossums too, before we had the safer coop that we developed after issues with them, opossums, and once, rats.
Having horses, opossums are NOT welcome near our barn or hay storage area, at least. They carry an intestinal; parasite, not a problem for them, but very bad for equines. 'Sarcocystis neurona', causing EPM, a fatal or severely debilitating neurological disease. One of my horses had it twice, survived thanks to treatment, and was unsound, not ridable, the rest of her life.
Just not a fan of opossums!!!
And they can get rabies occasionally.
Mary

 

[Zenmonkey]

And they can get rabies occasionally.
Mary

Mary is right.

This is a common misconception, that Didelphis virginiana is immune to rabies. It doesn't seem to happen often, but they absolutely can contract it.

Unfortunately the normal defense posture, assuming it doesn't play dead, is gaping mouth, tons of teeth, drooling everywhere, and acting a bit confused.

In other words it's pretty hard to tell if a North American possum is sick.

On the plus side, I've read that they're even better at eating ticks than guineas and muscovies. But that's not much comfort if your horse is dead and your chickens eaten.