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).