HELP! What is this thing(pic inside)? Another predator?

[RosemaryDuck]

They are not endangered. I see them quite often dead on the main road from being hit by vehicles.

No, but they will be if people continually kill them for no reason.

 

[MamaBelle5]

My husband and 3 year old son both have Lyme's disease (we live near apple orchards so there are deer aplenty). So I will gladly welcome any opossum I see in my yard.

 

[333113]

Some real opossum information:
https://mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2019-08/awesome-opossums

BTW, if you had said to my dad that your chicken was killed by an opossum, not just the dead body found and eaten by an opossum, he would have read you the riot act on not protecting your birds from real predators like raccoons. No possum can get into a cage or pen adequately protected from raccoons, and raccoons are everywhere, and _extremely_ dangerous to chickens.

 

[Cattle dog Mom]

That's pretty amazing you've gotten to this point in life and not seen one as they are ubiquitous and live everywhere,literally!
They are slow and stupid and very hard to kill.While not good ecologically,easier to relocate.They move so slowly you can usually walk up on 'em,grab 'em by the tail and take 'em away.Now, coons?Whole nuther thing.... I'll kill 'em w/o a second look.Both are very bad for chickens,I mean,lookit those teeth,right?

Not everywhere! We don't have them here. (Though I do know what they are as we had them in abundance where I lived for 30 years before I moved to this side of the state!

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

I only see the remains of predators around here. Good boy Buddy!

 

[cmom]

As much as everyone on this site has a burning hatred for possums, they are scavengers above anything else. They are very important environmentally as they eat a massive amount of ticks and pests every year. They will eat eggs from your birds but 9 times out of 10 they do not actually attack anything. If you can, simply relocate using a humane trap.

I don't think "everyone on this site has a burning hatred for possums". Many people would rather catch and release. I have had a possum kill a bird several years ago and now my coops and pens are quite predator proof. I caught the possum. It had dug under a fence. I see them all of the times on my game cameras. Here they mostly hunt at night. I have a video of an owl killing one of my birds. I love my cameras.

 

[Folly's place]

Having horses and chickens, I have zero tolerance for any opossums who take up residence or who visit my barn, paddock, or chicken coop. And relocation is illegal in many areas, so before doing it, see what's best done where you live.
They struggle in late winter, especially with snow cover, and do get bolder because they are desperate for food.
And we have lost birds to opossums very occasionally, back when our chickens weren't housed as well as they are now.
Very occasionally (it's pretty rare) they can contract rabies.
Mary

 

[RosemaryDuck]

Having horses and chickens, I have zero tolerance for any opossums who take up residence or who visit my barn, paddock, or chicken coop. And relocation is illegal in many areas, so before doing it, see what's best done where you live.
They struggle in late winter, especially with snow cover, and do get bolder because they are desperate for food.
And we have lost birds to opossums very occasionally, back when our chickens weren't housed as well as they are now.
Very occasionally (it's pretty rare) they can contract rabies.
Mary

Possums cannot contract rabies. The chances of it are like 1 out of 10000000. Their body temperature is so low the virus can't survive in their systems. It's a myth perpetuated to give more people more reasons to justify killing it.

 

[Folly's place]

Sorry, look it up on the CDC website, where there a documented cases. Few, but not impossible. Your story is the myth.
Mary

 

[Cattle dog Mom]

Possums cannot contract rabies. The chances of it are like 1 out of 10000000. Their body temperature is so low the virus can't survive in their systems. It's a myth perpetuated to give more people more reasons to justify killing it.

They ARE however a host for the EPM protozoa. Which can be fatal to horses.