Opossums

[Soundguy]

Likely it gravitated to his homstead due to the caged chix..

That's why i dispatch all small carnivores that 'find' my place. Hard to convince a hungry coon or possum to leave once they see the buffet line..except with copper or lead..

soundguy

 

[chh]

If you release him, it had better be far, far away or he will be back for the buffet. Once a possum or coon finds easy food it is nearly impossible to discourage it from returning. When you dump it from the cage, do be careful and don't let it bite you. I'm told that is very painful.

 

[4720 OWNER]

Is the stock tank deep enough for the cage? Save the bullets for moe exciting critters.

Is there a website that gives possum recipes? Not the one with smear of deer or coon ala king or poodle strudel.

 

[texasjohn]

shvl73 , hmm... I think you really do have the means to deal with your critter with dispatch.. if you wish to do so.

A brief story... as a high school teenager I did lots of varment hunting in the winter for pelts. Just my border collie and me. Once she treed a possum in a very small pecan tree about 6 feet up. As youth often do, I played around, grabbed the tree and whipped it back and forth..... possum catapulted onto the ground... and lay there...um...playing possum Dog sniffed it and figured that the deed was done and didn't bother it.

Now it's tail was all curled up and I reached down and unfurled it.... When I let go, it curled up again... and I could feel strength in the tail. So, I wrapped the tail around my left wrist and lifted him off the ground... tail gripped the wrist and he simply maintained the appearance that he was a DEAD possum, but I knew better!

I continued my hunt for another hour, maybe hour and a half with possum hanging off my left wrist. Whenever he would start to stir, I'd slap him in the head and he remembered that he was supposed to play DEAD Brought him back to the house and handed him off to the wetback (we now call these illegal immigrants) who enjoyed a change in diet!

 

[shvl73]

I called home tonight, she said it's doing fine. Seems to like boiled eggs. Won't touch veggies. Wound is looking better, from what she can see.
We got a good bit of snow monday. I left early for VA. Took alot longer than usual to get into central CT where the roads were clear, from there it was back to fast travel. The lesson on using the snowblowers sunday night worked. She tells me she got most of it done. I don't think she'll take over that job, a little wind and some snow down the neck was all it took. I'll do the clean-up tomorrow night when I get home.

 

[dieselalles]

What's an opossum? Is that a cousin to a possum?

The possums that visit our place are fond of eggs, and especially left over cat and dog food. And I wished I had a nickel for every time I've walked out the back door in the evening and seen their beady little eyes starring at me from under something.

FWIW, back in the 70's I was in the USAF and stationed at Wichita Falls, TX. A bunch of us were waiting in a parking lot early one morning for a classroom to open when I spotted a possum running between cars. Being the country boy I was, I caught up with it and put my foot behind his head so he couldn't bite me and picked him up by his tail. He was putting on a good show on by hissing and barring his teeth. I then carried him over to show my classmates. Most who had never seen one. The guys from New York City were freaking out because they thought it was a giant rat.

But I never knew they had possums in that part of Texas. Knew they had a zillion armadillos, commonly known as possum-on-the-half-shell by the locals.

The diseases that the possum can carry appear to be similar to what the armadillo can carry. Don't know if they are cousins or not. The possum is a marsupial, meaning it carries its young in a pouch like a kangaroo. No idea about the armadillo.

 

[Bird]

I never knew they had possums in that part of Texas

I don't know that there's any part of Texas or Oklahoma that doesn't have'em. Even in town, it's not unusual to see them run over in the streets at night.

 

[4720 OWNER]

We have them in MN as well now. Figured they came up on semis and liked it up here. Normally seen as possum pizza on the side of the road.

 

[dieselalles]

Bird, didn't know that. I guess they are pretty adaptable critters. Armadillos too, they are all the way up to the Mississippi River. I reckon they can't swim too good.

4720 OWNER, out West when you see a Jack Rabbit flattened out on the side of the road, you call it a "Sail Rabbit" cause you can pick it up by one of it's hind legs and sail it through the air. I guess you could adapt it to possums.

But OTOH, while it's fresh it would be "Possum Pizza", and once it's dried out, you got you a "Sail Possum".

 

[Bird]

out West when you see a Jack Rabbit

I've sure wondered whatever happened to our jack rabbits. In the early to mid-50s, I shot quite a few of them around Healdton, OK. Young ones are very good eating fried, but the older ones will be tough unless you cook them in the pressure cooker, but still very good eating. In the late '50s and early '60s, I was out in West Texas a few times and saw lots of them around Odessa. In 1964-66, I frequently saw them around North Lake (northwest corner of Dallas), but it seems they all just disappeared. I believe it was the summer of 1984 when I went with my brother to fly a new Cessna 152 from the factory in Wichita, KS, to Anchorage, AK. It was a bit late in the afternoon when we picked up that plane, so we spent the first night at Scottsbluff, NE, and it gave me quite a scare as we came in to land in that little plane and there were jack rabbits all over the airport and runways. I could just see us hitting one of those big suckers with the landing gear on that little airplane, but fortunately, we didn't. But now I don't think I've even seen a jack rabbit in many years.