I thought it would be a small possum under the old shed, but when the trap was not triggered on the first night, but half the bait was eaten, I knew it was a SMALL possum. I caught him on the second night with the remaining bait (part of a hot dog bun soaked in olive oil). He's SMALL. I'm going to release him into a hedge a way from the house on my way to Home Depot. Hopefully he'll have a good life, but in truth most opossums end up as food for fox, coyote, hawks, owls, snakes, and dogs.
Update: The possum is now in a bucket with a lid several fences away from the dogs. I put the trap with the possum still inside on top of the shed while I went in for coffee and to doctor a cut on the bottom of my foot from a few days earlier (I'm spending waayy too much time in Crocs). There was a fence between the dogs and the possum so I thought it would all be fine. Nope. There was a lot of barking, so I finally abandoned the coffee to go outside and see what was up. Misto was on the top of the shed roof! How the hell? It seems he climbed the wire on the short (four foot) cross fence, negotiated the wooden lip, bounced off the lids of a couple of trash cans with cardboard boxes on top, and then climbed on to the shed roof. I caught the dog, put him back in the dog yard, moved the cardboard boxes from the top of the trash cans, and put the possum into a plastic bucket for transfer to a vehicle. The dogs are amazing; they never disappoint.
7 comments:
excellent terriers (terrors?)
don't forget, possums are GREAT garden help--they eat all the snails and salugs, ticks, and your garden variety pests.
we encourage them on our farm...
oh, and by the way, if you are concerned about rabies and that is why your are relocating them, they have a very low chance oh acquiring rabies. fox, and raccoons are the big vectors, rare as rabies is...
A young one. I was less forgiving of possums in my younger days, but I've come to appreciate them more in recent years.
No concern about rabies (possums cannot carry it for more than 30 minutes or so due to low temperature), and the insect-eating abilities of possums is rather wildly over-stated (no, they do not do much to control ticks or slugs). The possum is moved because the dogs WILL kill it, and in the interim they will spend night and day trying to do that job, resulting in a big hole under the shed, barking, and general mayhem.
Ask any horse person what they think of opossums. They are carriers of saracocystis. A debilitating brain parasite. And they are poultry killers.
That terrier is out there. He can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And He absolutely will not stop, ever, until the quarry is dead.
Interesting variation on a trailing and locating trial.
If you have a nearby park, that would be a nice place to release the Opossum. There's a nice park (Little Bennett) just far enough from me so that the critters are not tempted to return. Heaven knows how many squirrels I "re-homed" after my previous Jack went into retirement. Current Jacks are very much on the job, so my bird feeders are safe and the squirrels know that raiding them is a very quick path to having a very bad, and possibly very short, day.
Karen, I get your fear-
Here is some info on Sarcocystis that you might want to know and which might make you feel better:
First, there are a TON of species of Sarcocystis.
Every mammal, reptile and bird has its 1 to 5 species of Sarcocystis that infects them.
The Protozoa is closely related to Toxoplasma, which you may have heard of. Nearly every cat and cat owner is asymptomatically infected with Toxoplasma.
It is a similar case with animals infected with Sarcocystis. Some individuals and animals are more sensitive, true; and horses are one of those. But most, I think around 60% of horses in the Midwest for example, are asymptomatically infected and a surprisingly small percentage show signs and are clinical.
But here’s the interesting thing:
Of the 4 Sarcocystis species that infect horses, only ONE is carried by the opossum and that same species is ALSO carried by dogs, cats, raccoons, rats, skunks, pasture birds like cowbirds, and some marine mammals. Armadillos too.
The other 3 species that infect horses are carried by dogs ONLY...
The opossum does carry 5 species, but unlike the cat and dog who carry many species that infect others (all kinds of livestock, humans, etc), 4 of them are NOT infectious to any other animals.
The only one that is infectious to others, is the one I mentioned above that ALSO infects all of those other common farm, wild, and pet animals....
So I would not blame or fear the opossum so much.
It would be difficult to prevent clinical Sarcocystis infection, if your horse is one individual who will in fact, show signs of it, unless you eliminate all dogs, cats, rats, skunks, raccoons, cowbirds, armadillos, etc...
Regarding chicken predation,
we’ve found using electric net fencing a super effective way to keep all predation (possum, raccoons, coyote, Fox, rats) away from our poultry...And our fruit orchards come to think of it!
As a vet, regenerative farmer, and sheep rancher, we choose to work with wild animals on our farm because they truly all have a benefit and important place in Nature and on farms in general.
Regarding Sarcocystis in sheep on our ranch, there are many species that infect sheep- again most are carried by dogs and cats, and most USA sheep are infected asymptomatically with Sarcocystis—I think the estimation is some 80-90%?... anyway, possums around here are a benefit not a liability.
But then again, we don’t have 100% Terriers😉, only 50% ones (American Bull Terriers), and they are super well trained not to chase or kill anything but rodents....
Post a Comment