lost to an opossum

[Hansen4211]

woke up this morning to a dead chicken in the coop. Half eaten. Our coop is very secure with hardware cloth, heavy metal fencing on the ground around the coop, and a metal roof. The sides are 8 feet high with only a 3 inch gap between the top and the roof. Darn if an oppossum didnt get thru that 3" gap and my husband found it napping in a nesting box after destroying one of my girls.

My great husband quickly boarded up those openings. And got rid of the oppossum. Im glad I didn't find it.

 

[sawmane1]

yah i lost a bantam to one last week, only ate the head than drank the blood.

 

[Vamvakas]

Wow, I have alot of opossum where I live and they don't bother my chickens, they are more scavengers. Sounds more like a racoon to me, they rip heads off and only eat some of the chicken then take off.

 

[Hansen4211]

found a total of 4 oppossums tonight. All stalking our chickens after the one killing one of our girls last night. Kinda scary really. they have never bothered them before, but all of a sudden, they are all around the chickens.

 

[chigger bait]

A possum is like a cat, if they can find an opening that they can get their head through, the rest of them will follow.

 

[Ole rooster]

I watched a possum go trough a 1 1/2 inch opening. 3 inches is like a train tunnel to them.

 

[Hansen4211]

well that 3" opening is no longer there

 

[mohillbilly]

I've had [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]opossums tear thru a fence before not much will stop a full grown opossum. What I found that works the best against them is a Blue Healer (probably not the correct spelling) and a 22 cal rifle[/FONT]

 

[Hansen4211]

We don't have a dog, but we do have a cat that is usually pretty good and running everything off. However, we have made use of the .22

 

[darkmatter]

Possums go into baited traps easily, catfood, scraps, or eggs work.