Orphaned Baby Possums

[casportpony]

I have chickens so I've been on this site and ran across the possums other people aren't very nice to them

Find an exotic pet vet and surrender it to them, that or find someone with a car to take you to a wildlife rehabber.

 

[Birdinhand]

probably the most humane thing to do is put them down. the easiest way is a bucket of water. that aside, if you are looking for a life enriching experience, then that's another matter. they are marsupials, rather interesting if tamed, but 11 of them, wow, that would be a major project followed by rehoming and is technically illegal without a wildlife rehab license. I don't think you will have much luck trying to "save them" and release them later in the wild. I tried doing that with a lot of critters when I was young, they end up attached to you and relatively defenseless as adults. if you are set on keeping one or a few as pets, it can be done. marsupials are born in a remarkably nubile state, they do a lot of their development in their mothers pouch, which is close to a womb. they start out almost embryonic, much more so than say a puppy or a kitten, meaning that depending on how mature they are, it may or may not be possible to keep them alive long enough to get them on some kind of suplemental formula. If they are old enough to make it through the transition, it might be worth a try if you like doing this sort of thing and have a lot of time on your hands. it takes several months before they can even open their eyes. you'll need a thermostat controlled heat mat of some sort. a riostat is not generally good enough, they tend to have a high and low set point that causes excessive temperature swings. the cheapest decent one is called Jump Start, it's made for doing vegetable starts in early spring but is used for this purpose in the pet trade. it has a probe that is placed (ideally attached) in the middle of the heated surface. it can regulate temperature pretty well and is easy to set. you'll have to find an appropriate heat source, some kind of heat panel or under tank heater or heat tape (flex wat), something made for the pet trade for rearing of young animals like baby snakes etc. I found a decent site on them, they need a temp of 95.4 F. check out this site to get a sense of how involved this can be: http://www.2ndchance.info/raisepossum.htm

 

[pamela80]

Thanks his doing really good on his new food and has a great bill of health the vet said that that the kitten milk was ok just the puppy is better but he gave me special kind of flomula just for him also avocados ate good for them he loves them with bannanas and nectarines crickets mashed up

 

[Little Fuzzy]

I raised 4 baby kittens and used a sock filled with raw rice heated in the microwave for warmth, it worked pretty well, might try it until you can get the heating pad.

 

[Gray Goose]

Just curious to see how the orphaned possum is doing now? I have been raising three and they're quite cute! Mine have progressed to a cat food diet and ironically, they dislike the chicken flavored food! They are growing quickly and weigh close to a pound a piece now.

 

[Gray Goose]

 

[centrarchid]

At that size they are now ready to eat animal foods, especially insects. Froglets and worms will also be consumed. When in predator mode they move quicker. Those are also at the size that that mom drops them off to start independent lives. Mother does not train little ones as much as placental mammals. When we had baby opossums dropped in barn and other outbuildings where they could be found during the day singly in particular spots, they would have relatively small home ranges used to forage / hunt during the day. You have a month before they will be willing to go after a chicken in the dark even if chicken is larger.


For my kids sake, the next female opossum I catch will be protected so she can drop off a kid or two in the barn. We will set up some little dens so we can find them in the day and watch them with game cam at night.

 

[casportpony]

View attachment 551981

They are cute!