My Virginia Opossum

[aldebono]

Instead of hijacking the Short Tail Opossum thread, I thought I would make one about my Beatrix.

She was bit by a dog when she was about 4 months old and it crushed her pelvis. She was so tiny, and Opossums life span is only about 4 years in captivity (shortest lifespan for mammal of their size), I decided not to do any sort of surgery. Even though she still has feeling in her legs and tail, she can not use them normally. She has full run of my apartment and belly crawls to get where she is going.

People may think that I should have put her down, but she gets better care and food than I do. She will be 3 years old this spring, so she is definitely getting up there in age.

She gets a bath once a week and her ears cleaned with a q-tip because she can't use the thumbs on her back feet to do it herself.

Right after her bath


She is "pottied" twice a day, just like you would any baby mammal. She use to wear a diaper when she was younger because she would go more frequently, but now we have a routine and she rarely wears her diaper. Her diapers have ducks on them.

She gets a day to day mix of super worms, roaches, rat pinkies, yogurt, natural apple sauce, bananas, grapes, chicken and turkey pieces, and high quality dog food. They can eat almost anything except pork and beef, and highly processed and preserved foods. Like any kid, she does not like vegetables.

She wakes up at around 10 every night to be pottied and to have her dinner, then she takes a couple hour cat nap and gets up to roam the apartment sometime during the night.

As much as I love opossums, I couldn't recommend opossums as a pet to just anyone. They travel a few miles every night in search of food and we don't know enough about their diet to have a premade diet for them (Like Mazuri, etc). They are a lot of work.



I understand this is not the ideal situation for her. I wish that she would have only had minor wounds so she could be released into the wild when she was ready. But she and I are making the best out of her situation. She is safe, fed, watered, warm, changed, and loved. And that is the best I can do for her.

I hope everyone loves reading about her. I will add some pictures tonight of her getting some roaches(her favorite).

[aldebono]

Eating her dinner. She doesn't hold still for very long.



Cleaning her feet.

[babyknees]

love it, super cute and i love when ever someone helps out an animal in need

[cmack91]

so did you find her after the dog bite and take her in, or did you already have her? props to you for taking the time to care for her needs after an injury like that, most people would see a opossum, and either kill it or take it to the vet. it looks like she would make a cool pet, but i think i'll stick to snakes lol

[Redneck_Crow]

Mine liked vegetables, but only certain kinds. Miss P went nutty for steamed broccoli and raw corn on the cob. She liked baked sweet potatoes too.

Like your possum, Miss P had been bitten by a dog, but she was a full grown adult. She was so torn up that when I saw her lying in the snow I thought that she was dead and when I found out that she wasn't I brought her into the house so that she could die in peace. A few hours later she woke up a little and I helped hold her up so that she could drink. The next day the @%&$## possum ate most of my Kentucky Fried Chicken, at which point her box was moved out of the kitchen.

She was injured in November. That March I took her to a protected area and let her go. She had some dandy scars and her tail had a permanant kink at the end, but at least she got well enough to go back to being a wild possum. Funny thing is, P always seemed to know that she was being helped. She would fuss and growl a bit if I did something horrible to her, like bathing. But that was it. She was also very clean and used a litter box with cat litter and a few dead leaves on top to make it seem "natural."

Miss P --

[aldebono]

so did you find her after the dog bite and take her in, or did you already have her? props to you for taking the time to care for her needs after an injury like that, most people would see a opossum, and either kill it or take it to the vet. it looks like she would make a cool pet, but i think i'll stick to snakes lol

I put an add on Craigslist for babies to rehab and release (she is actually my second opossum). An apartment complex called and said one of their residents' dogs attacked her. She still has the scar above her hips.

Mine liked vegetables, but only certain kinds. Miss P went nutty for steamed broccoli and raw corn on the cob. She liked baked sweet potatoes too.

Like your possum, Miss P had been bitten by a dog, but she was a full grown adult. She was so torn up that when I saw her lying in the snow I thought that she was dead and when I found out that she wasn't I brought her into the house so that she could die in peace. A few hours later she woke up a little and I helped hold her up so that she could drink. The next day the @%&$## possum ate most of my Kentucky Fried Chicken, at which point her box was moved out of the kitchen.

She was injured in November. That March I took her to a protected area and let her go. She had some dandy scars and her tail had a permanant kink at the end, but at least she got well enough to go back to being a wild possum. Funny thing is, P always seemed to know that she was being helped. She would fuss and growl a bit if I did something horrible to her, like bathing. But that was it. She was also very clean and used a litter box with cat litter and a few dead leaves on top to make it seem "natural."

Miss P is so cute. I love their sweet little faces!
I am amazed that she is so friendly being an adult opossum. I don't think they are as aggressive as people think, it's mostly show.

I love that she ate your fried chicken, she probably thought she hit the jackpot!

I also was really surprised at how clean they are and how they really don't have any sort of body odor. She does however express her scent glands when I potty her and ugh.... We thought she had a urinary tract infection at first because it's green and smells like death. It's amazing what you learn when you have to be that personal with them.

My fiance was really unprepared when I asked him to put his fingers in her pouch to clean it while I was holding her at bath time. They definitely have a pouch lubricant that is a rusty red color and reminds me of betadine.

My mom and I saw a hit opossum circling in the ditch in the middle of Gainesville. I jumped out and threw a towel over it and the poor thing went stiff and "died". I was laughing so hard because I forgot they played 'possum! I kept it in a large, short tupperware bin on my porch and fed watered "her" for two days until she had time to recover. She definitely had some head trauma but I figured if she could get out of the bin she was feeling good enough to go on her own again.