GuineaFowling
Songster
So the last couple of weeks I have been trapping opossums. All the ones I have trapped were various sizes and looked like the average american opossum, rather healthy too. Tonight, I heard something eating cat food on my front porch ( I leave cat food out for a rowdy crippled tom cat) so I opened the door to find a giant ugly opossum. I normally think opossums are cute, mind you, so when I say this one was ugly I mean it. Lets call it ugly.
Ugly is the biggest opossum I have seen and was more white in color. She had almost looked like a small hog. Her fur was very dirty and looked like it had a skin disease going on. Of course it could have been that her fur was just matted, She was in the shadows. Ugly froze when she saw me but then ran off. I shouted for my sister to get the trap and went after her. She ran into my side garden behind my pick up so I waited for the sister to get the trap. While I was waiting I heard something in my front garden bed and seen something move. Next thing I know something small and rat like darts into the direction of the opossum. I got close enough to see that it was a baby opossum. The baby ran in its mothers general direction.
Once the trap is set I leave my sister in the yard as I run in to grab some batteries for the flash light and when I come out my sister is pointing at the opossum as it climbs over the fence. We couldn't find it as we would have to go all around the property in order to get on the other side of the fence. I didnt risk climbing over for fear of the opossum and spiders. The baby however had its head ripped off by its mother. My sister said she heard squealing so she went closer to see the mother cleanly rip the babies head off and then eat it. The mother then ran away because of my sisters approach. She only had one baby.
My questions:
Why would she kill her baby?
I know it is rare for opossums to get rabies since they have really low body temps and the virus couldn't survive in them but could she have rabies?
Also could she infect my cats?
I have set traps and I know there are at least 5-6 other opossums living on my property so I will trap them.
The reason being for me trapping them is:
A.) I have lots of curious cats who will probably go up to the opossum and get attacked.
B.) I have Guinea fowl and quail who the opossums will likely go after if I stop them from getting the cat food.
C.) The opossums are living underneath my house and causing a lot of trouble.
So please do not say anything about me being cruel in trapping them, I am not killing them I am releasing them in the woods.
Ugly is the biggest opossum I have seen and was more white in color. She had almost looked like a small hog. Her fur was very dirty and looked like it had a skin disease going on. Of course it could have been that her fur was just matted, She was in the shadows. Ugly froze when she saw me but then ran off. I shouted for my sister to get the trap and went after her. She ran into my side garden behind my pick up so I waited for the sister to get the trap. While I was waiting I heard something in my front garden bed and seen something move. Next thing I know something small and rat like darts into the direction of the opossum. I got close enough to see that it was a baby opossum. The baby ran in its mothers general direction.
Once the trap is set I leave my sister in the yard as I run in to grab some batteries for the flash light and when I come out my sister is pointing at the opossum as it climbs over the fence. We couldn't find it as we would have to go all around the property in order to get on the other side of the fence. I didnt risk climbing over for fear of the opossum and spiders. The baby however had its head ripped off by its mother. My sister said she heard squealing so she went closer to see the mother cleanly rip the babies head off and then eat it. The mother then ran away because of my sisters approach. She only had one baby.
My questions:
Why would she kill her baby?
I know it is rare for opossums to get rabies since they have really low body temps and the virus couldn't survive in them but could she have rabies?
Also could she infect my cats?
I have set traps and I know there are at least 5-6 other opossums living on my property so I will trap them.
The reason being for me trapping them is:
A.) I have lots of curious cats who will probably go up to the opossum and get attacked.
B.) I have Guinea fowl and quail who the opossums will likely go after if I stop them from getting the cat food.
C.) The opossums are living underneath my house and causing a lot of trouble.
So please do not say anything about me being cruel in trapping them, I am not killing them I am releasing them in the woods.
