Possum Problems

[Lanicus]

Last night I went out a little later than usual to close up the chickens and there was a possum right there in the coop eating chicken food! So I got a gun and killed it, and it had about 10 babies in it's pouch! Nothing is worse than having to kill any kind of baby, I had to tell myself it was for the chickens. Anyway I am wondering if they travel in packs or something and if I need to worry about more. Also, over the course of a week I lost 9 juvenile ducks and 1 fully mature duck in the night but there was no evidence or feathers or body parts anywhere so I thought they were being stolen,so maybe this possum was taking them? But I just dont think any preditor could be that good at clean killing, 9 different times...

 

[shmccarthy]

Possums generally travel alone, except the case where there's a mother and babies. I have killed countless possums just because they get into everything and are plainly disgusting. I understand your remorse for killing the babies but the way I see it, they grow up into adults that know your place is a place to get food. :/

Edit: as for the ducks, I'm not sure unfortunately. It could have easily been a possum eating them. I know some predators are good at taking animals with little evidence left behind ie. coyotes, raccoons, fox.. With no evidence left its anyone's best guess unfortunately.

 

[Lanicus]

Okay, thanks for the reply. They duck problem has really stumped me and it is getting really irritating.

 

[shmccarthy]

I bet, I would be really irritated too! We lost our entire flock in 2 nights to an unknown predator. Something dug under the coop and into the run, then preceded to break the door into the coop and killed half of them, coming back the next night, despite our efforts to fill in the holes, and killed the rest. We think it was a coyote or a coon but we're still not sure. :/ it is really horrible to loose your animals to a predator.
I hope you figure out what it was, maybe set up a game camera?

 

[Lanicus]

Yeah I think we will.. We once had something actually break the wire and tear a hole through, there was literally feathers all over the yard.. it was a horrible sight, it could possibly be a bobcat or a non-typical preditor that came by. What I really need is a big mean dog to keep preditors at bay!

 

[Mattemma]

Bummer about the pouch babies,but you would have killed them later Perhaps you can set some leg traps for the larger preds.

 

[feather13]

Sorry for your loss and I sympathize with you about the opossums! An opossum killed one of our chickens and it was a pretty gruesome sight. I had no idea that they would kill a living animal. I naively thought they were scavengers. I live in the city and we live trapped the opossum (they inevitably come back) and the local animal control folks came by the next day to pick it up. I know a lot of folks think this is a misguided program because the animals are just released somewhere else, but I couldn't bring myself to kill it (I'm in the tiny minority--I think they're cute and interesting looking...) Maybe you could set a baited live trap out by your coop and see what you catch. Whatever's killing your birds will keep coming back for more.