They generally don't cause any problems. So i leave them along. from This thread people are the problem
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They generally don't cause any problems. So i leave them along. from This thread people are the problem
A 100# Chesapeake Bay Retriever works wonders
Once had a dobie male that decided possums must be puppies... over his lifetime, he tried to bring five different pogo's in the house. I'd separate him from his new pet... bring him in and put pogo in a tree... and the next time he went out the possum would be waiting to play. Ended up having to shoot pogo anyway just to keep it out of the house. The dog, not the brightest bulb on the tree, never quite put it all together.
Possum DOES NOT taste like chicken !
Pour some Diet Coke into a dish, add about a cup of Golden Malin Fly Bait. You will find the opossum dead next to the dish. It works on some raccoons also, but not all will drink it. The neighborhood cats will not touch it inasmuch as it smells like rotten flesh. I do not know if dogs will drink it or not. Personnaly, shooting them, especially in the city is not a good idea. Aside from possibly legal problems of shooting in town, you have to be there when the opossum(s), are, whereas the fly bait method works when ever they show up.
Why not just catch them, and take them somewhere else? They aren't fast, and you can easily grab them by the neck or tail. Did it quite a few times when I was a kid.
Like Waksupi said, they AIN'T fast, heck as slow as I am I bet I could still catch opossums, if you are scared to catch it (no reason to be) then just thump it with a stick, no muss, no fuss.
Consider a .17 or .22 air rifle
This animal may have closed hunting/shooting season in your state
Jim
Went to a seminar for Tick Borne Illnesses and possum were 99% rabies free and had very few deer ticks because they groom themselves so well.
http://www.caryinstitute.org/newsroo...-killers-ticks
I’ll post it over and over again. Possums eat tics. One possum eats 5000 tics/year. Lyme disease is no joke. Possums are a natural, effective, safe method to control tics and hopefully Lyme disease.
Please read the article in the link. It is short, but informative.
Possums are good. Don’t kill them. Spread the word.
Adopt a possum.
catboat I have adopt 2 of them they live under my shed in the back yard. they have been there for about 4 years now. they come up on the carport and eat the cat food. they do not bother the cats and the cats do not bother them. ever spring they have there kids and life is good for the us and them. D Crockett
When I was a kid, 13 or 14 years old I caught a small one and took it into a little crossroads country bar one night. I held it in both hands curled up where you could not see the head nor tail and the barmaid thought it was a cute little rabbit. She petted it till I let it uncurl, then let out a scream and jumped away. lol
A lady that was fairly tanked up wanted to buy it, I told her 2 bucks and she whipped it out, all the while her husband was griping about it. I ask ho many more she wanted, and she said all I had, I knew where the rest of the litter was, so went and got her 4 more, not too shabby when minimum wage was about 1 buck an hour. Her husband was beside himself though. lol
300blk,
Imo, the medecine for possums in the city is a .22 SHORT gallery load out of a long barreled rifle. = fairly quiet & will do the job.
(Or an arrow with field tip from a bow.)
Mr. Pogo Possum takes LITTLE killing.
yours, tex
It never had anything to do with crime. It was 1934 the heart of the depression and game managers were afraid it would encourage rampant poaching and jacklighting so they pushed for it.
If armadillos are tearing up your yard use something to kill all the grubs. What do you expect when you have a food platter out front? We have lots of armadillos here but none in the yards and gardens since we got rid of the grubs.
Don't kill the possum.
22 Shorts with #15 shot capsules are hell on tics though.
RPRNY & All,
Our local State Game Biologist recently said that possums seen in your yard in the DAYTIME are often diseased & some of the sick ones have rabies (or are asymptomatic carriers of rabies).
The reason that rabid possums are NOT more common is that most attacks by a rabid animal usually KILLS or severely injures "Pogo".
Btw, my late mother was a "feral cat feeder" for decades. = Some years ago, a "hand-sized" possum appeared at the cat feeding station. The other "eaters" accepted him (evidently as just a funny-looking kitten) & he came to eat at dusk or later every day for several years.
One of the neighborhood "mama cats", who had lost her latest litter, adopted him & taught him to act quite cat like, including washing his paws & "doing figure eights" around Mother's feet. - He even tried HARD to learn to purr like a cat but wasn't particularly successful at that task.
(Fwiw, that was one fat/sleek/friendly possum!!)
yours, tex
He is an idiot. The opossum is a marsupial that's why it is rarely rabid. Very hard to infect.
Show me the data. There NO data that exists for this sort of bs.Quote:
The reason that rabid possums are NOT more common is that most attacks by a rabid animal usually KILLS or severely injures "Pogo".
I know the internet is the last place to look for accurate, useful information, but it just doesn't have to be this bad.
for you guys with tick problems send me your address and I will send you a big burlap sack full of possums. I will pay the postage to start with and you can send it back to me. They might be kind of owly by the time they get there.
For years the Game Wardens here in Okieland told me we didn't have cougars. Nonetheless, I would see one occasionally.
I think the Oklahoma Wildlife Dept (OWD) finally acknowledged cougars' existence 2 or 3 years ago.
I was seeing them in the 90's in certain areas.
BrentD,
Rather than relying upon or posting your opinion, may I suggest that you do some serious research on rabies??
IF you do some serious reading on the subject, you will find that ALL mammals can acquire rabies.
Granted that rabies may be more uncommon in marsupials (I don't think that there is positive scientific data that proves that hypothesis.) but nonetheless possums are mammals & therefore MAY become infected with the deadly virus by direct contact with the saliva, urine, blood and/or feces of other infected mammals.
(Btw, the USDA's official GUIDE TO THE DISEASES OF LIVESTOCK FOR FARMERS, RANCHERS & STOCKMEN states that rabies MAY be acquired by direct contact with the corpses of infected animals.)
yours, tn
I have only personally seen one mad dog that tested positive for rabies, I was pretty young then. It was not tested , but I believe I killed a rabid opossum with a frog gig, it was the only attack opossum I ever laid eyes on, and I have caught and played with lots of them.
starmac,
Personally, I've seen exactly one rabid dog & that was long ago when I was a city marshal.
(I was asked by the sheriff's office to check out a lady, who had called in to "county central" & was very frightened & incoherent.)
When I arrived, I discovered that she had "been chased into the house" by a rabid dog. I thereafter shot/killed the dog, called the county by radio & requested that the body be retrieved & properly tested/disposed of.
yours, tex
22 short hp high velocity or 22 lr subsonic hp will work quietly.
22 short or sub sonic for head shot
But possum has brain the size of a field pea so look at possum skull before taking up arms!
Coyotes love them, but personally I’d rather have the possum problem.
Remember- After you dispatch- Possum n sweet taters is first class
All in jest!!!!!! Possums pose no problem and are fun to watch. No reason to kill!
I was doing some work outside the other night and the momma possum came up to eat some cat food and I noticed that her belly was about to drag the ground she is going to have her a bunch of kids soon they will be fun to watch D Crockett
I had a Possum living under the front crawlspace of the house. The quietest way to get rid of them is a have-a-heart trap and a rubbermade container filled with water. I have drownings regularly here in town....Possums, skunks, squirrels (reds and greys), and chimpunks...gotta thin the herds around here. I don't mind critters...I actually love seeing them...but when they want to live where I live....that's where I draw the line.
redhawk
.223 + SRP + 1.5 grs. B'eye + .22 air rifle pellet. Lift muzzle before firing. Problem goes away quietly. BTDT.
.22 cb short or long from a rifle is less noisy than an air rifle and plenty for ‘possum.
This guy would eat 2 pounds of cat food a night, then try to get at my chickens for desert. Had to go but before he did he chewed the heck out of my Labrador Retriever.
https://i.imgur.com/WD9cMAjl.jpg
Seriously?
He chewed up your Lab?
I wouldn’t have expected that. I mean, your gerbil, sure. But a dog that size?
My Bengimin nitro piston .22 has a built in suppressor on the barrel. It is quieter than a suppresd .22. It has plenty of power for what needs taken care of. Squirrels, coons, possums, it doesn't matter. With the right pellets there is plenty of penitration.
Possums are useful critters, better to let them do their job. Each possum kills up to 10K ticks in a season (they groom each other and eat the ticks they find) and they eat lots of trash, dead stuff, bugs.
But if you must, smoke them with lots of sweet taters.