Possum

[lmerklein]

Hi,

I got my possum this morning!! I got a trap and set it last night. The girls are safely sleeping in their Hen House!!!! I was ready last night. I will take a picture of the ugly thing.
I put a fake wooden chicken with cat food in the trap. He went for it. I was afraid of getting a skunk. This guy was back to finish his kill. I am so happy I got the thing.

 

[Triple Willow]

Hi,

I got my possum this morning!!  I got a trap and set it last night. The girls are safely sleeping in their Hen House!!!!  I was ready last night. I will take a picture of the ugly thing.
I put a fake wooden chicken with cat food in the trap.   He went for it. I was afraid of getting a skunk. This guy was back to finish his kill.  I am so happy I got the thing.

Great! But do keep you trap set every night for a while, might be more than one. ...AND I'm sure you can find a great possum recipe online. lol

...it's best if you keep them caged up for a few days and feed them to get the roadkill and that sort of thing out of their system before you dress and eat them. (Joking, but not really. lol)

 

[lmerklein]

Hi

I am going to set the trap each night. Your right. There maybe more than one! They are ugly. God made all creatures.
My girls were so cute this morning. I finally can sleep..

 

[Ridgerunner]

I was going to comment on resetting it too. Last fall I set the trap for what I thought was a raccoon. Something was messing with my mousetrap.

The next morning I had a possum. Hm, that’s not the raccoon I was after. I reset the trap. Next morning, nothing. Next morning, another possum. I kept it set for another week and nothing else. It was a possum messing with my mousetrap after all.

My take this year so far is 5 possum and 4 raccoons, mostly pretty well spread out. Getting rid of one does not solve the total problem, but it does reduce the immediate danger. Good job and good luck.

 

[Triple Willow]

Hi

I am going to set the trap each night. Your right.  There maybe more than one!  They are ugly. God made all creatures.
My girls were so cute this morning.  I finally can sleep..

They are ugly but also kinda cute in a weird way. The babies are really cute. Some people have them as pets. They can climb REALLY well so be sure your coop is secure from the ground (or below ground!) All the way to its rooftop. Regular "chicken wire" is no good for keeping anything out. Use hardware cloth attached with screws if at all possible - and hope for the best. Electric wire around your coop and run helps with most all predators. Good job on trapping Mr. Possum!

Seriously, some of the predators people kill and toss away or relocate are edible and highly tastey - coon, possum, bear, etc. Coon is really good. If your ancestors came here a long time ago (like mine) they survived on those animals because there was no grocery store with a meat section. People have survived, no THRIVED on those sources of meat since the beginning of time. If eating that stuff was "deadly" nobody but people with vegetarian ancestors would be here! lol

 

[Triple Willow]

I was going to comment on resetting it too. Last fall I set the trap for what I thought was a raccoon. Something was messing with my mousetrap.

The next morning I had a possum. Hm, that’s not the raccoon I was after. I reset the trap. Next morning, nothing. Next morning, another possum. I kept it set for another week and nothing else. It was a possum messing with my mousetrap after all.

My take this year so far is 5 possum and 4 raccoons, mostly pretty well spread out. Getting rid of one does not solve the total problem, but it does reduce the immediate danger. Good job and good luck.

How does your mouse trap work? Looks like something I need!

 

[lmerklein]

Wow, I am going to set the trap for the next few nights. I don't want anything other than a possum.

 

[fowl farm]

Hi,

I got my possum this morning!! I got a trap and set it last night. The girls are safely sleeping in their Hen House!!!! I was ready last night. I will take a picture of the ugly thing.
I put a fake wooden chicken with cat food in the trap. He went for it. I was afraid of getting a skunk. This guy was back to finish his kill. I am so happy I got the thing.

Have you decided how to get rid of it? One idea is drowning. Sounds harsh, but I know when a possum attacked my duck and then scared me to death a week later, it wasn't so big a deal Drowning isn't messy and I have heard that it was one of the more humane ways of doing it? Glad you got it before it caused any more trouble!

 

[Ridgerunner]

How does your mouse trap work? Looks like something I need!

It’s obviously a fairly deep bucket. I use a cat litter bucket. Put a couple of inches of water in it so they can’t reach the bottom with their feet and jump out. You’d be surprised at how high they can jump. The water also helps kill them pretty fast. It’s more humane than letting a mouse starve to death in a dry bucket, especially since the bait falls in and they can eat it.

I use thin lightweight pieces of wood to balance between something the mice can run on and the top of the bucket. Hard plastic strips might actually be better. It takes a bit of practice to get the balance right. You don’t want it too delicately balanced but delicate enough. Then just put some bait on it. I use chicken feed but peanut butter would work well too. Put it where the chickens cannot get to it.

I use water so after they drown I can feed the mice to the chickens. That will freeze in the winter for a lot of us, so be careful. Some people use antifreeze or something like that but antifreeze is poisonous. I would not feed those mice to chickens.

You might prefer the Adirondack mousetrap. That’s actually the one the possum destroyed for me. You can look it up on the internet but the Adirondack one is just a rod through the top of a bucket, put a soft drink can on the rod so it spins real easily, then bait the can, usually a strip of peanut butter all the way around the can. Then position a ramp or something so the mouse can climb up there and reach over to the peanut butter. When they put some weight on the can, it spins and they fall in. It takes a bit of work to get the ramp or pathway up there positioned right, but the advantage of the Adirondack is that it does not need to be reset all the time. It will work until the peanut butter wears off or totally dries up.

The Adirondack is often used in a week-end cabin where you don’t visit a lot. The antifreeze not only stays thawed but it preserves the mice so they don’t rot and you don’t return to a really stinky cabin.

 

[Urchin]

Have you decided how to get rid of it? One idea is drowning. Sounds harsh, but I know when a possum attacked my duck and then scared me to death a week later, it wasn't so big a deal Drowning isn't messy and I have heard that it was one of the more humane ways of doing it? Glad you got it before it caused any more trouble!

Drowning is not humane. It is very painful due to water getting in the lungs and is not a recommended to way to humanely kill an animal. Your best bet is probably a single gunshot to the head. That's instantaneous.