My dog started raising hell a while ago, which is something that he'll do three or four times a day. Hardly anything escapes his notice, and especially anything out in back of the house. There's about an acre and a half of open area, then a tree line and some woods and a creek. I see plenty of deer and other stuff back there pretty frequently. I've never seen hogs back there in the 18 years we've been here, and had never seen coyotes until earlier this week (I've always known they're around, they get crocked and sing at night with some regularity). I've made up my mind that the coyotes' days are numbered...I just won't tolerate 'em. Other critters I've seen include lots of squirrels, armadillos, and the occasional fox and even a bobcat now and then.

So anyway, Rocky stated raising hell so I went to investigate. The biggest possum I ever saw was crossing the clearing and headed out of the woods and up toward the house. I figured he was probably coming this way to get under my house, and I do not approve of that. I headed out there to run him off. By the time I got out there he had gotten under my boat. Yelling and throwing a few stones at him seemed to make no impression, so I grabbed a stick and started poking at him and he came out from under the boat but was adamantly refusing to vacate the area. More pokes with the stick elicited only lots of slobbering and hissing, him facing me head-on the whole time. I think this critter was acting a little strange for a possum, displaying no fear, being out in broad daylight, slobbering all over the place, and showing NO tendency to "play possum," which is supposedly an involuntary behavior for them.

I didn't want to harm the thing but I didn't want him hanging around, either, and poking him with the stick was making no impression on him so I started bopping him lightly between the ears with the stick. The first few times he did not react much, so I whacked him just a little harder four or five times---not enough to harm him, just enough to change his attitude for the better. He finally took the hint and trotted back down into the woods about 50 yards away and disappeared.

This darned thing was about twice the size of any possum I had ever seen before. Maybe I had only seen juveniles in the past, I dunno...could be, but I'd guess he weighed about 20 pounds. His head was nearly as big as Rocky's (American Eskimo, or Spitz), and Rocky weighs about 28. According to several conflicting sources, possums do not ever or do but only very rarely contract rabies. The atypical behavior has me wondering.

I don't want to have to kill the thing, but no one or no thing stays under my house without paying rent.

I wonder just how big these damned things can get.

Last year i had the front door open, just the glass storm door closed
I worked a late shift so was maybe 1 am, chillin in front room w TV.

Light from the room shining out the door, illuminating something passing by. It was a possum
When his head exited left of the door, his butt had yet to appear on the right.

Ive seen big possums and this was the biggest.
Ran into back room and grabbed a recurve and jumped outside.

He was gone. Dunno where he went

Neighbor lady said shoot em w .22 no matter the time of night. She hates em.

It was explained to me that a possum has a lower body temperature than other mammals, so low that it cannot support the rabies virus.

I have no hatred towards possums. To me, they're inoffensive critters that pose no threat. But then, I don't raise chickens or ducks. I wouldn't mind if one made a snack of the noisy rooster across the street. LOL!

They get a pass on my property.

After my last possum experience that got a little western with a .22 inside a garage, all possums will now be dealt with via centerfire, preferably one starting with .4. Just saying, they can be harder than you think to kill. Or maybe that one was possessed, regardless, bigger hammer.

We have an opossum rather large that lives under the jenga of our 15 cord wood pile.

She/He eats cheap cat food with our 3 barn cats. All seem to ‘get along’

Only time I’ll kill them is when theyre caught in my sweet corn.

I have ponies, so I’d kill every one that crossed my fence if I had the creepy things

They're pretty chill for a wild animal... all bark, no bite. I seriously think the only way one would ever bite is if you stuck your hand in thier mouth. If you pick them up by the scruff, they just go dead limp.

Last one I shot came walking out of my shed with a green smile and a rat poison block in his mouth. I went ahead and spared him the pain.

We've got a big old scraggly one now that comes around the yard several times a week. I had to walk out the other morning and tell him to beat it, as he was digging around about 10 yards in front of the front porch and there was about to be a rowdy little PitBool coming down the steps to do her business. He blinked at me for a while before I finally convinced him to climb a sapling. Not sure how those things survive their full 4-5 year life expectancy.

Hate em.
Bastards would get in my coon sets when trapping as a kid.
$25 dollar coon? Nope, a $1.50 possum.

Nest predators, ground nesting birds numbers are extremely low.

Friend had one get into the garage and turned the seat of his snowmobile into foam pieces an inch square or so.

I was hoping for pics Rider

If he comes back, I may well post pics...but I won't guarantee his health status.

I thought briefly about pics as I was trying to persuade him to leave, but there wasn't anything nearby to provide perspective for judging his size. Now, if I can get my wife to---ohhh, never mind. LOL.

Honestly, I'd leave him alone if Rocky wasn't so alert and vocal. If that damned thing gets under the house Rocky will know it and he'll never stop yelling about it. He can hear what's going on down there through the duct work.

My labradors rough up several a year. They do the “play possum” game.

I’ll haul em down to the dead end road minus the dogs.

One exception, I tossed one in the back of the pickup and decided I would show my daughter that it wasn’t deaddt, I gave it fling out into our catfish pond. Well bout the same time that possum hit the water, my black and yellow labs cleared the bank and did what labs do. Facepalm🤦🏻🤣
We had to haul that one to the end of the road too. ✅

LOL!!



Ooops.

I used to hate them. Still don't like them. I trapped a lot in my younger days. As hookeye referenced, there are few things more frustrating on the trapline than finding a worthless possum in that perfect raccoon, mink, fox, or coyote set. I think they are so hard to kill because their brain is so small.

True tale:
My dad grew up in the Ozarks during the Depression. Routine activity for him was catching live racoons and/or opossums. Late one night put a coon AND a opossum under a wash tub to keep til next morning. When he removed the tub next morning the coon was dead and opossum just grinned at him... and was given it's freedom!

I was expecting a pic of Stacy - oh wait... not a possum?

Yeah, ^^^ ditto

Live Action !!! 😀

The eat ticks like crazy. I would think a tick is too small to "hunt".

Our German Shepherd X St. Bernard, Gus, was a giant of a dog, well over 100#. He would patrol the farmstead and bring us the carcasses of any critters caught trespassing. Coons and ‘possums were the most common but badgers, skunks and coyotes were all in the mix too. One night I came home from an appointment about 1:00 a.m. and there was the biggest ‘possum I’d ever seen lying on the sidewalk. I took the toe of my boot and flipped him off the walk. He was playing dead and was unhappy with the rough treatment Gus had given him. He hissed and lunged at me with his mouth open…looked like a freaking crocodile coming at me. I kicked him, with little noticeable effect, and he just waddled away. I doubt he was 20# but he was 10-15#.
Got a small black one that lives in the hollow willow down by the creek. On warm days, like today, he’ll come out and eat birdseed in the middle of the day. I’m afraid our resident eagle is going to catch him doing that but I don’t know if eagles or anything for that matter eats ‘possums?

I’ll take a nocturnal possum instead of a tick any day. A friend of ours is going through hell with a full lown case of Lymes. Our possum takes a whole apple in his mouth and packs it off to under the neighbors deck. He’s more useful around here than the deer chewing on the shrubby.

I read a article years ago that said that opossum size varies by amount of nutrition, sounds like cat food might be a good nutritional supplement! Lol

When I lived in SE Texas, I heard my little wife screaming on the back porch to "let me in"! My twin girls were just big enough toddlers then to have learned how to lock the door knob. They had locked her out when she went into an out building. Upon her return just a s she tried the doorknob, she spotted/heard a big hissing possum on the same porch corner (enclosed back porch) Scared her so bad she didn't think of back tracking, ha. I ran, let her in, saw the possum and closed the door quickly. Ran and got my 357 I kept loaded with snake shot, and shot him several times in the head. I had to get almost touching before it penetrated skull. He was so heavy his tail made a "pop" sound when I lifted him. Huge. My neighbor came to the fence, heard the screams, shooting, said "That's the thief that's been killing my chickens"! So yeah, nutrition helps.

I don't know how to post a link to articles. There is an article by Ken Perrotte, entitled "New Study Says Possums Don't Like Eating Ticks", updated Jan 5, 2022. Perhaps someone more technologically capable than me would be kind enough to post it.

My take on possums has always been to shoot them. I have my doubts that they actually eat many ticks at all. I've never watched a possum for any period of time and thought that it looked like it was hunting ticks, or any other insect. They do eat turkey eggs and partridge eggs. Turkeys eat a lot of insects, including ticks. Just spend a little time watching them. Every egg that a possum eats is one less that can turn into a tick eating bird. I'd rather watch turkeys in my yard and around the pond and food plots than possums.

Sons a bitches is hell on chickens

Bang!

Osky

There are more reasons to get rid of 'em than to keep 'em around. And BGG's is the main reason.

I haven't seen any down this way, but previous experience/understanding is that a big mature male may weigh as much as 14 pounds, and maybe a bit more. If yours goes over 20 pounds, that is a considerable percentage above the norm. As some here have noted, easy/rich food sources can account for the greater weight, but how much?

Yep, all the guys I worked with from East Texas were coon hunting nuts, they all carried coon dicks around to pick there teeth, to get a rise out of the city boys and young hires 😂, any way they would throw a big bore coon in with a possum and bet what would win, said coon never did. This was a long time ago.

As a kid I raised meat rabbits.

Dad and I were in a friend's barn, measuring oats to buy. (He wasn't home, we paid
him whenever we saw him.) Dad saw a flash, as I brained a Grinnin' Fool with
the grain shovel.

It was a dandy, earned his living stealing Tom's cat food.
He and Dad lied to me for years, telling me it was his kids pet.


My feelings for them haven't changed, unfortunately I can't shoot here at this
house. A shovel still works!😉😉😉

Possums are like velcro to a tick. As they meander they accumulate a bunch of the freeloaders , Possums then do what a good dog will and preen and pick themselves clean. I have no hard evidence but this was explained to me by a person of high regard.

As kids we would wait until sundown and catch them by the tail. put them in a dry cow tank till we had a half dozen or so, then let em go. The hay mow was like a motel for them.

I used to catch a bunch of them trapping. 2 or 3 dollars a piece. Some days I would catch 5 or 6. Minimum wage was 2.35 an hour. Did it after school.

As far as eatin' quality. Twas 'splained to me that if you ran them through the dishwasher first and then fed them corn for a week to clean them out that they made pretty fine eating.

'course that fella was from Tennessee and had a neffy named Jethro so he mighta been fibbin'

This. They die.

.
Good stuff

Not if it's digging into yer nuts.

If you have horses, got to shoot possums, you can’t let them get to horse feed. If not they eat a lot of ticks and don’t carry rabies.

I was scrolling quickly and read the p as a b in the title.

So obviously, I am very disappointed with the content of this thread.

I caught this suckka' a few months ago. I gave it to a messikan and I know not it's fate:

you would be surprised how big possums and skunks can get when they are eating well and dont live close to the highway

Used to hate catching one while predator trapping....seemed like the only thing that would put a set out of business. Catch a damn possum and have to build another set close by.

The business of them eating ticks has been debunked as plain old bullshit.

Put 12 rds of 380 hp into one not long ago sumbitch was leakin like a busted pipe up in a tree they see no quarter here

Who was the old member who hated them so bad?


Had a story about one crawling out of a large animal

RWE

Last seen on the 3rd.

Killed one on the porch with a hatchet a few weeks ago.

Why did the chicken cross the road? To show the possum it could be done.
We were frog grabbing one night and shined our Q-Beam up on the bank at a dead cow carcass. Eyes were everywhere. We interrupted a possum banquet. Some were on and in the carcass. 14 in all! Yuck! Some call em grinners. I’ve caught them in Hav-a-Heart cage traps and they seem to get caught easily. I tried to bottle feed a young orphan once but it succumbed to a respiratory ailment. Funny gait when they run with their tail straight up. They can hang by their tails also. Dad removed one from a neighbor’s garage and it had little tails hanging underneath. The babies were in the pouch. They were blind and clawed their way back in when up pulled them out. There seems to be more road killed on a full moon.

I did one in with a 2x4. It was the biggest one I have seen. Killed him just because.... I had meat rabbits. RZ.

Had one hiss at me like a dragon one time before a 3 inch mag #4 blew his mind🤯

Late one night when I was a kid, there was a helluva' fight outside my bedroom window. Turned out to be an opossum vs. a feral cat. Lots of racket.

carrollco,
Baby possums can't poop by themselves.
If you have to bottle feed them,you have to stimulate (rub) there butthole to
get them to crap. Otherwise, they fill up with shìt and die.
Tiny kittens are the same.



If you want to be a "Good Mother",
lick their butt like a Possim Mom would!

The above was serious, but it doesn't sound it!😄







Absolutely serious about this one too,
i've been pondering it for 30 years.





How come roadkill possums blow apart on rainy nights?

On a dry night, you see dead possums, and pizza possums.

But on a rainy night?
They all look like a bomb went offensive them?


Observations and thoughts from a Bored Ass Trucker,
with too much time on his mind.

A big racoon got in my attic a few ago so I set a live trap to catch it. All I caught at first was possums and I just took them go far away from where I live and released them. I found out that raccoons love marsh mellows so I baited the trap with marsh mellows and caught a huge boar coon the first night. I shot him in the head with a pellet gun and hauled him off for the possums/buzzards to eat.