I just panicked and kicked a possum in the face.

[drumstick diva]

I doubt that I could kill one. But, baby possums grow up to be big ones, same with raccoons, fox, coyote - it's not like you can turn them into a safe, sweet pet by taking them out of the wild. Yes, I know some people make pets out of them but, sooner or later they reveal their true nature.

 

[NicInNC]

I agree with the person that said they are disgusting, nasty creatures. We caught 2 last week and the were so stinky and gross that I was dry heaving when I got near them. They smelled as if they had been living in a sewage system. Now I did find a baby possum once years ago in the coop and I actually brought it inside the house to show the kids. It was cute.

That being said, we rehome all the animals to a nice place far from our house. We've rehomed 5 skunks and 3 possums so far.

 

[bingrancher]

I didnt mean to open a can of worms and offend people. Like someone said they grow up. Relocating doesnt always work. If you introduce them into a bigger predators area it will be killed or chased off till something kills it. Or what if there is no food or water in the area you release it. Google the diseases they leave behind in their fecal matter. I had oppossums eat my chicken feed and poo in it. I chose to keep my chickens alive and protect my food source.

 

[Bush Chickens]

i actually have a photo of my dad holding a possum from the memphis zoo,so yeah,im partial to possums.& 1 time we saw a skunk dead on the road,WITH babies,& only 1 was alive,and it was standing in the middle of the road nudging her&squeaking"mommy?wake up mommy"in skunk. thankfully,we saved him,kept him in a box,and released him when he was old enough.to my knowledge,i forever know that my dad saved a life.How about you?

 

[bwahk]

i actually have a photo of my dad holding a possum from the memphis zoo,so yeah,im partial to possums.& 1 time we saw a skunk dead on the road,WITH babies,& only 1 was alive,and it was standing in the middle of the road nudging her&squeaking"mommy?wake up mommy"in skunk. thankfully,we saved him,kept him in a box,and released him when he was old enough.to my knowledge,i forever know that my dad saved a life.How about you?

 

Kudos, that's awesome... what I wanted to do for the baby possum before it was murdered so cruelly.

 

[hehahn]

Two stories:

First one-

One night I'm sitting on the couch and my husband looks at me and his eyes go big as saucers. "Don't move!" he says and runs away. Real comforting. So as the worst scenarios are going through my head, he comes back with gloves and a stick and a big box. Great. I was imagining snake, so possum was better, but not by much since it was behind me. It crawled under and into my couch, and we had to flip it over and prod it out. It was fairly young and stupid (like most of us were in our adolescence), and we re-located it. It had gone into the dark garage when the kids left the doors open, then to the kitchen, then living room. I'm just glad we found it before it ate a pet or made a home in my couch!

Then a few years later-

One night I heard something in the attic, and "encouraged" my husband to go investigate. Nothin' doin' at 3 am. Next night the same. And the next. So I'm the only one who ever hears it, and I was pregnant and having weird dreams, so hubby blows it off. This goes on for months. Then come Spring we see Momma Possum and her eight babies crawling out from the eaves of our roof. My kids were impressed, "She has more kids than you!" Nice. I was just glad I wasn't crazy with the weird noise issue.

We re-located them (hubby pulled them out by their tails) to the back woods, and haven't seen them since. We didn't have chickens at the time, though, so if we had I might have dispatched them instead. One reason we didn't kill them is that we have snakes and they eat them. I found 3 coral snakes in my front flower bed alone! True red-and-yella-kill-a-fella coral snakes! For us, that was a good trade at the time to get rid of venomous coral snakes and copperheads. But like I said, we didn't have chickens at the time either.

I don't think you should go straight to killing if you can avoid it, but I feel the same way about possums as I do about criminals. As long as you abide by the law and don't take someone's life you get to keep yours. When you go on a killing spree, you lose your right to be part of society.

As for disease, I had a vet tell me that they are one of the dirtiest animals in the animal kingdom. They are carrion eaters with all that implies, and carry everything you'd never want to have from viruses to bacteria, worms, and parasites, and they are known to carry diseases like leptospirosis, tuberculosis, relapsing fever, tularemia, spotted fever, toxoplasmosis, coccidiosis, and trichomoniasis.

Google it and you'll never touch one with your bare hand, much less let it near your chicken coop. To the guy who replaced his chicken's food and water, that was smart. Their feces is usually shedding worms, parasites, and the like.

Ok, possum stories over. They were cuter when I didn't have chickens.

 

[Impress]

Well, it came back. And it has now gone to possum heaven. I see we had some upset here while I was off hunting this possum.

My main coops are very reinforced. And in many areas I am sure possums can be pretty okay, and not a problem. I have a large open pasture with many ducks that nest down in the field, and have had a possum massacre many times before. I don't tolerate them on my property, they are a predator and yes they go bye bye.

 

[bobbi-j]

Good for you for taking care of the problem. Everyone has their own opinions. Personally, possums don't get to live here. We have horses, and they can contract bad diseases from an opossum. I also don't want them getting into my coops. As far as relocating, I am firmly against it, mainly for the disease issue.

PS - We probably would have run over the baby skunk in the road. Why? Skunks are major carriers of rabies where I live. A close friend of mine and her family (they had 3 very young children at the time) had to go through the rabies shot series because a rabid skunk had found a batch of baby kittens and killed several of them. The mama cat fought with the skunk and contracted the disease, and the kids played with the cat. They know it was a rabid skunk because a few days later, the daughter saw a skunk in an shed, just wandering around in circles. They killed it and had it tested. Then they had to have one of their cats tested. It was positive. They had to put down every animal on their farm - the kids' pet cats, dog, everything. Nope, skunks don't get a second chance here.

 

[chkn]

Good God, I hope ya had some good shoes on and not some bunny slippers!

 

[Moonblink's Farm]

Ha if you think that was funny I was climbing a tree and a oppossum fell from the top of the tree and landed 7 feet away from me. It froze shocked .( then I chased it)