Opossum in the city, need a very quiet load.

[pertnear]

Use the .223. Size a case & prime it only. Use a .22 cal pellet as your bullet. A .22 pellet measures .222 dia so you may need to squeeze it to increase the diameter or use a little wax to hold it in the case neck. Nice & quiet & you don't have to buy an air rifle.

[Texas by God]

If you are quick enough, you can capture him with a baitcasting net. Then dispatch him with a hammer to the forehead.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[richhodg66]

I live way out in the country and can shoot anything I want, no problem. We had an outside cat for a couple of years, occasionally a possum would come and eat any cat food still there after dark. I shot one, felt bad about it. Now if one is a problem, a live trap usually gets them within a few hours of night fall (they are really stupid, gotta be the easiest things to trap there is) and they get a free ride out to a very remote spot a few miles down the road.

They're almost universally immune to rabies. They also eat ticks and they're so docile I doubt one would have hurt the cat unless the cat attacked it first. I've gotten to where I don't like killing something without a good reason. Coons and coyotes are the only shoot on sight critters out here anymore.

[Wolfer]

I live out in the country and shoot in the yard a lot. I have lots of trouble with coons and possums in my chickens. I have a homemade box trap that I set in the barn where the dogs can't get to it.

I don't want to shoot through the trap so I go down in the field about 20 yds from the woods with whatever pistol I have at hand. Turn them out and if they make it to the woods I'll trap them another day. 1 made it, one almost made it, the other 20 or so didn't make it.

Side note. My 32 mag puts them down right now. My 38 special puts them down with considerable more athourity. 45 colt is a sledgehammer.

[catboat]

This is waaaaaay late to a 2013 thread, but I saw the word “possum” and wanted to reply.

I just read an article about how possums may be a secret weapon for fighting against deer ticks ( Lyme disease carrier).

Evidently, the slow moving possums are easy targets for ticks, and the ticks jump on them. Possums are tremendous groomers, and eat the ticks off their body, killing the little buggers (ticks). It was estimated than ONE possum eats/ kills 5000 ticks per year.

So don’t kill possums. They are a desperately needed “natural” tick killer to fight Lyme disease. Live trap them, and relocate the in high tick areas.

http://www.caryinstitute.org/newsroo...-killers-ticks

[richhodg66]

Well, if the little guys didn't have a protected status on my place before, they sure do now after reading that article. I absolutely hate ticks, nastiest things God put on this earth. Anything that systematically kills ticks is good in my book.

[Hogtamer]

A possum? 6 pages about a possum? Geez man, poke em with a stick, he'll do his possum thing, put him in a sack and take him to the country! Or of he's a real killer build a rabbit box, bait him with sardines and take him to the country. A possum? I did get a good chuckle here, thanks!

[W.R.Buchanan]

Hogtamer, so did I. I live where varmints are part of life every night and when you deport one another comes in to take its place the very next night.

Here's a pic of my latest intruder Deported to Lake Casitas.

Record stands at 43 Raccoons, 8 Opossums, 2 Skunks. I call Animal Control for the Skunks as they have to be put down on the spot and then they get taken back for dissection looking for rabies. Everyone else gets deported upwind from the house about 5 miles. If you release down wind a Coon can do 2 miles a night easy and they will be right back with you in a day or so.

Plenty of action. I have one raccoon I can't seem to catch and she has been with us for nearly 4 years. Comes thru every single night and washes its hands in the fountain, Pisses wife off greatly. Wife would shoot him if she could stay up late enough.

Hava-hart traps aren't that expensive and I've had both of mine for 25 years, and they get used frequently.

Randy

[D Crockett]

I live way out in the country and can shoot anything I want, no problem. We had an outside cat for a couple of years, occasionally a possum would come and eat any cat food still there after dark. I shot one, felt bad about it. Now if one is a problem, a live trap usually gets them within a few hours of night fall (they are really stupid, gotta be the easiest things to trap there is) and they get a free ride out to a very remote spot a few miles down the road.

They're almost universally immune to rabies. They also eat ticks and they're so docile I doubt one would have hurt the cat unless the cat attacked it first. I've gotten to where I don't like killing something without a good reason. Coons and coyotes are the only shoot on sight critters out here anymore.

here is a novice idea just leave it alone all it wants to do is live to and what is it really hurting? I have had one under my shed for the last 5 years now it has never hurt a thing. D Crockett

[poppy42]

Unless it’s eating your garbage or in your house, leave it alone. I was a nuisance trapper in New York. You would be amazed how many live in the cities! Being nocturnal you don’t see them unless your out late at night. If you have to dispatch it use a pellet gun or 22 shorts or cb caps. The weapons you discribed will punch right through so you best remember those four rules. Especially “know your target and beyond”!

[ofitg]

Back in the 70's I knew a fellow who connected a flex-hose between his camper shell and the exhaust pipe on his pickup.

He'd catch a critter in his live trap, stick the trap inside the camper shell, and take a drive out to the edge of town. The critter would be "history" by the time he reached the city limits.

[trapper9260]

Possum and coon eat the game birds eggs and young. I have got 29 of them from trapping this season and they are gas money after you put them up. Also they can be eaten and it is poor mans pork also because they are alot of fat in them. but are good after all the fat is off.

[6bg6ga]

No one has mentioned that it is illegal to discharge a firearm within the city limits? It didn't bother me when I was younger either I simply did what I wanted. Years ago many there was a cat that got into everything. It tore up garbage it crapped anywhere it wanted and it would climb on top of vehicles and scratch the hell out of the paint. One day I threw caution to the wind loaded the Colt Woodsman Match Target Bull Barrel 22 and popped the SOB in the yard in front of several neighbors. There was some clapping as I picked up the lifeless carcass and dumped it into a garbage can. A few days passed and a friend that was town cop pulled into the driveway and got out and said "Joe, you do know it is illegal to discharge a firearm within the city limits. By the way....make sure you put the carcass in a bag so it won't be seen.

More years passed and having a female German Shepherd I soon realized she was quite the hunter. Nothing animal wise was allowed to be in her back yard with the exception of humans. Any other animal was fair game and that she made of them. Nothing survived once in her back yard. Squirrel, rabbit, possum, and raccoon were dust within several minutes. Anything that flew too low had an abrupt crash landing.

[DougGuy]

Coons yeah you don't want them around. Their feces carry the eggs of a parasite that can grow worms in the brains of humans and other animals. The eggs are apparently very tiny and very light weight and can go airborne with the slightest disturbance of the feces, run it over with the lawnmower in the yard, sweeping out a place where coons have inhabited, good ways to ingest these eggs. Do not let the coons set up residence..

Possums don't carry hardly any diseases, and are efficient killers of ticks and other insects, they also compete with rats for the same food groups so where you have possums, you won't have rats. I let the possums live.

Coons I introduce them to a heavy 25 caliber pellet to the head from a highly modified pcp pellet rifle.

[richhodg66]

With the number of turkeys we have around here, I'm having a hard time believing possums have much effect on their populations. Now that we don't have an outside kitty to feed, I don't see them causing a problem. Even when one ate some cat food, if I caught them, I just shooed them off the porch. I've actually given some consideration to setting up some kind of a feeding station for them out away from the house. If those little suckers eat ticks, they're my friends and I want them close.

We do have skunks around too, which is fine. I really don't mind them being around, just don't want to accidentally encounter one. Don't have an active, curious dog around anymore unless my son bring his over for a visit, so I doubt skunks will be a problem.

[BrentD]

Possum and coon eat the game birds eggs and young. I have got 29 of them from trapping this season and they are gas money after you put them up. Also they can be eaten and it is poor mans pork also because they are alot of fat in them. but are good after all the fat is off.

Not the ones living in a city as in the OP here.

[poppy42]

Coons yeah you don't want them around. Their feces carry the eggs of a parasite that can grow worms in the brains of humans and other animals. The eggs are apparently very tiny and very light weight and can go airborne with the slightest disturbance of the feces, run it over with the lawnmower in the yard, sweeping out a place where coons have inhabited, good ways to ingest these eggs. Do not let the coons set up residence..

Possums don't carry hardly any diseases, and are efficient killers of ticks and other insects, they also compete with rats for the same food groups so where you have possums, you won't have rats. I let the possums live.

Coons I introduce them to a heavy 25 caliber pellet to the head from a highly modified pcp pellet rifle.

You are on the right track about coons. I don’t know we’re you heard that parasitic eggs could become airborne and inhaled but that’s wrong. The eggs must be ingested. when I dealt with clean up I always wore rubber gloves and washed thoroughly. The parasite can be extremely dangerous to small children. Not so much for adults. Possums are different matter. Not so bad for humans but if you have horses, I know not likely he lives in the city) possums can be deadly to horses. Google EPM.
By the way dose everyone realize that we are commenting on a 5 year old post? About possums no less ! If the op still has the possum problem he is in trouble!

[BrentD]

For those of you on the east coast, Leann Kanda and her colleagues have well documented the spread of opossums northward along the eastern seaboard. The species has been able to do this by surviving harsh winters in urban environments and the relatively continuous urban development has created a corridor for them to move north. In the northern edges of their ranges, rural opossums only exist as immigrant-subsidized sink populations that are maintained by migration of surplus animals from urban habitat.

It is a pretty interesting (to me at least) story, and you can learn a bit more about it be simply googling "Kanda opossum".

One of the more interesting papers Ecology, 90(6), 2009, pp. 1574–1585  2009 by the Ecological Society of America
Seasonal source–sink dynamics at the edge of a species’ range L. LEANN KANDA,1,2,6 TODD K. FULLER,2,3 PAUL R. SIEVERT,4 AND ROBERT L. KELLOGG

[trapper9260]

Not the ones living in a city as in the OP here.

I understand what you mean Brent .I just state for what they do and the ones in the city will find a way too, like the coon and skunk.

[owejia]

Possoms and coons make a mess on my hay rolls stored in the barn, a nasty mess.