How to get rid of a possum?

[jc9766]

heart broken-
something got into my coop and killed my silkie- I ran out and it was just running out of the coop- it looked like a possum but I only saw the back. I thought everything was secure- hardware cloth around any opening. Ive been searching to see if there was a space it may have gotten through the hardware cloth - hoping there was some fur- but I can't find any. I only found 2 small holes which I patched but I still can't sleep at night worrying. I have a pen with an electric fence around it and the run us inside that enclosed in hardware cloth. Any suggestions on what else I can do to protect the rest of my hens.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Quote: Sorry about your bird
Run some more hot wires around your pens and coop, ( and make sure they are working) and get a live trap to catch the predators

 

[chickengeorgeto]

An electric fence works equally as well on departing varmints as it does on incoming varmints. Unless you cut the electricity off when you made your appearance, why didn't the electric fence keep the silkie killer at the scene of the crime? As Bare Foot suggested you better start with the effectiveness of your first line of defense, your electric fence.

Animals like an opossum or a raccoon can climb like English ivy. How secure is the roof of your pen or run? Are there anyway a climbing predator can breach, bridge, or go over the E fence say by climbing a tree or an out building? Not only are predators opportunistic feeders, they are also opportunistic escapees, as you discovered when you opened the door to your run. Your predator saw an easy meal when it discovered your silkie and the predator took your bird, and it saw an easy path to freedom when you opened the door to the run and the predator took that path.

Bare Foot and myself both admit that we catch live possums with our bare hands. That should be enough evidence that an opossum is not the most agile, the fiercest, or the fastest furbearer in the world. If you aggressively hit a possum over the head with a fly swatter he will sull up or play dead. It is then quite easy to pick the possum up by his prehensile tail and carry him away, just don't hold him too close to your own body because the possum may awake and decide on taking a more confrontational approach to defending himself like biting you on the
leg.

 

[Cantonmentchickenmama]

I am having a hard time trying to find out how a possum is getting into my chicken coop. I have walked the perimeter and cannot see any place were the possum is getting in. I am finding broken eggs in the nesting boxes. I have found several eggs on the ground unharmed, but recently found one outside the coop broken. I have mostly large breed chicken, but do have a few smaller cochin and quail mixed breeds that I worry about.

My sister in law has caught a possum and killed it. However that didn't solve the problem. I don't feel like live trapping will solve the problem either because there are obviously more of the buggers around the area.

Please help.

 

[centrarchid]

I am having a hard time trying to find out how a possum is getting into my chicken coop. I have walked the perimeter and cannot see any place were the possum is getting in. I am finding broken eggs in the nesting boxes. I have found several eggs on the ground unharmed, but recently found one outside the coop broken. I have mostly large breed chicken, but do have a few smaller cochin and quail mixed breeds that I worry about.

My sister in law has caught a possum and killed it. However that didn't solve the problem. I don't feel like live trapping will solve the problem either because there are obviously more of the buggers around the area.

Please help.

Show a picture of the setup opossums are breaking into. Use a live-trap to simply find out where they are getting. You can still release them on the spot and use them to repeatedly test your improvements to the engineering of your coop. I would even mark the oppossums caught to figure out how many are causing problems relative to the number already present.

Also not not rule out possibility someone else is involved. The live-trapping can also be used to simply ID visitor, not simply a prelude to dispatching.

 

[enola]

I live trap them. Drown them. Then cook them in a crock pot and feed them to the flock.

 

[gawildlife]

Please don't trap and relocate;  the possum will have a very hard time in a new location,  and he knows about traps and chickens, so if he survives at all he'll be someone else's chicken predator, and much more difficult to trap.  Also, relocating certain wildlife is illegal in many areas, for very good reasons.  Trap and shoot is the best plan.  mary

While I would normally agree for most species I would disagree on both opossum and coons but for different reasons. First you give grinners to much credit as they are as dumb as they come. They are a very primitive species arising very early in the fossil record and remain virtually unchanged for millennia. As such they do not display higher skills sets found in higher evolved species. No territorial behaviors, no intraspecies conflicts over food of habitat. Basically where ever a grinner is is home and as long as his nose works it can find food. They literally live the life of riley.

Coons on the other hand are probably the baddest dude on the block with pretty good brain power for a critter their size. This makes them extremely adaptable and able to adjust when relocated, as long as they are fully adult with adult skills. Now that said raccoons should never be relocated in any area where either rabies or distemper is present or suspected nor in areas adjacent to those areas. The risk of spreading disease is to great.

 

[gawildlife]

Opposums are ugly and mean looking but they do not deserve to be "thinned" or killed because they are getting into a chicken coop.   A well designed coop/run will keep out any opossum.   Opposums are active and hunt at night when chickens are not free ranging.   Simply close up your well built/fortified coop at night and there should be no problems.   You can kill predators as they come and keep coming......    or you can fortify your coop/run and live in harmony with nature.   I choose to live in harmony and my "opinion" reflects that.

Here are a few facts about Opossums

• Opossums help gardens by eating snails, slugs, insects, snakes, rats and overripe fruit.
• Opossums are not a public health threat.
• There is far less of a risk of infection from opossums than from house pets.
• The opossum's greatest enemies are cars and domestic pets.
• Another predator of opossums is people, who hunt them for food, sport, and pelts.
• Opossums are not territorial and move to wherever food is available.
• Opossums do not have good eyesight or hearing -- they rely mainly on their sense of smell.
• Opossums are very clean animals and groom themselves much like a cat does.

Well consider me a predator then. I don't particularly like your opinion. So how is it us hunters and trappers are bad yet you keep wild animals in confinement evidently for your own selfish pleasure and God help you if you steal their eggs and eat them. Or are you one of those murders who eat the flesh of your fellow animals.

BTW every grinner I catch gets thumped for general principle.

 

[123RedBeard]

Here are a few facts about Opossums Opossums help gardens by eating snails, slugs, insects, snakes,

Thieving buggers! That's good chicken feed! --------------- Sounds like a visit with a baseball bat is in order ... Glad to hear your dogs are starting to be dogs!

 

[gawildlife]

Catch it in a have a heart and toss the trap in a barrel of water and wait for the bubbles to stop.

Not something you want to advertise. Mind you I don't have a problem with it and I know a little something something BUT it is not accepted by the AVMA as a form of euthanasia and the wrong sort of people could make trouble if it were known. Strangely though blunt force trauma is acceptable as is shooting, throat cutting and neck breaking. Properly exsanguination and cervical dislocation.