Short Tailed Opossums

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Originally Posted by Andrew Larson

I was just wondering if anybody here keeps them or has kept them. I currently have a pair of them. The male is about 5 months old and the female about 3-4. I hope to breed them soon when the female is a little bigger. I need to get around to posting some pictures of them.

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Hey, do you have any babies for sale? :) I am trying to find a breeder in mesa, az. I have had no luck yet. :(

hey i live in arizona too, and im desperatley looking for one.. where did you get yours? please respond! :)

Bad Bart as a cute little youngster--

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...umscale005.jpg

Bad Bart now:

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...rMiriam003.jpg

Mad Max, the possum I had before Bart:

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n.../beadyeyes.jpg

They are walking Cuteness but because they are marsupials they are prohibited in NYC as pet.. even if they are well known laboratory animals.. and That's really messed up..... Sometimes I really hate that City :-/

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Originally Posted by JLC

I didn't know there was such a thing as a "short tailed" 'possum. How short is the tail? How are they different from their longer-tailed brethren? It's hard to imagine a 'possum of any sort making a good pet...I'd be interested in seeing your pics and hearing more about them!

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Actually hand raised regular possums make great pets. I know a possum rehabber in my town. She let me take a baby in for a week while she was on vacation once to bottle feed. I got to hold and play with one of her adults. They are incredibly tame and only potty once or twice a day. They prefer to go in a moist area so she puts them in the shower for a minute and they just go. Never any accidents in the house. She let's the neighborhood kids play with the ones that have been bottle raised. they pretty much just sleep in a cat bed all day. Very inactive and never bite. They bond strongly with you but only if they are tiny babies.

I was surprised to see all this but it's true. Of course, older ones can not be tamed at all.

Very neat little animals!

The short tailed opossums are cute too because they are so small.

http://tapatalk.com/mu/a6898c90-63a2-63a7.jpg
This is a photo of the rehabbers possum peeking over her shoulder :)

Um, about older ones not being able to be tamed at all...

I guess it depends on what you call tamed. Miss P was a wild adult possum who got chewed up and nearly killed by the neighborhood dogs. I brought her in the house thinking that she was going to die, and that I could at least let her die where it was warm and quiet.

She lived. Once the fur grew back in, you couldn't see the ugly scars. She had a slight kink in her tail where it had been broken, but it was still fully useful for climbing. She stayed with me for 4 months then I released her in a wildlife preserve. This is the adult wild possum a few days before she left. She never bit or tried to. She wasn't domesticated, but as soon as she figured out that I wasn't going to hurt her she quit hissing and let me pick her up.

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...row/MissP2.jpg

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...row/MissP1.jpg

Awwww! That's an awesome story! Well maybe the info this woman gave me was based on the fact that she houses older possums being rehabbed in a large pen outside and has little contact with them. This is to ensure they don't become dependent on people.

You're proof positive though. That's a cute little (big lol) guy!

Funny thing about opossums--their behavior reminds me more of tegus than most other mammals. If you pick them up mid-body from behind, they're not as threatened. If they open their mouths and you open yours, they will slowly close them in response to you closing yours. They hiss. They do the little huffy jerky thing. About all that they don't do is tail whip.

I got Miss P in the winter. Around early spring she started to get restless, which is at the begining of possum breeding season. When I turned her loose she ran straight away, then turned back and came almost up to me. She looked at me for a second then headed on over the hill into a hollow.

Maybe she was hoping she'd luck out and get one more mouse out of the big meanie who kept her in for so long.