possum herding.

[steve snyder]

Last week i had a male possum chasing a female thru the pasture......I told sam to bring them. The female was strange to him as he had never seen one . He hit her and rolled her like a ball. I told him no and she ran under an old house here. I told him bring it sam about the other possum and he actually circled him to push him my way and the possum had teeth bared. I said down Sam,and he laid right down. I told him come and he ran to me. I put him inside then shot the possum. I notice with strange things he will at times chest bump them. His parents are both used on a black angus farm and his dad is very big. Sam was 68 pounds at a yr. Solid muscle in front shoulders and chest(abca registered.) Still a very agile dog. I also trained him to find my son who is 8. My son can go hide in the pasture or woods and Sam will go find him on command. (safety feature)

[Nuance]

After i read this i had to look up possums,  they look kind a scary. Closest thing we have to possums would be racoons and my money would be on the racoons.

[steve snyder]

you're right when it comes to raccoons but possums are slow and dumb........I just didnt want him to be bitten as they were out in the daylight which is unusual.

[D'Elle]

Opossums can be dangerous but only if cornered.  Otherwise they are slow and tend to be peaceful, preferring to go away over fighting anyone.

As the continent's only native marsupial, I personally think they should be respected and not killed. They are really fascinating animals who do no harm.

[GentleLake]

You killed an awesome tick eating machine! I'd be happy to have a bunch move in and eat the ticks in my area.

Possums really aren't a threat to people or dogs and do much, much more good than harm in the environment.

[GentleLake]

[D'Elle]

Thank you, Gentle Lake. If there were a "like" button you'd get two "likes". There's no reason to kill an opossum. And as you point out, lots of reasons not to!

[Mark Billadeau]

Except if they are in your chicken coop killing chickens 

[D'Elle]

If that's the case, best to make your chicken coop more secure, because if an opossum can get in so can raccoons and skunks and coyotes and...... Better to make the coop safe than to kill all those animals, in my opinion. That's what I always did when I had chickens.

[Mark Billadeau]

The one I killed was in amongst round bales waiting for our free range chickens to root around in the bales (it’s where they hung out during the day).  Our current lgd keeps them out of the field or kills them (and other predators).

[gcv-border]

On 6/13/2022 at 6:12 AM, steve snyder said:

you're right when it comes to raccoons but possums are slow and dumb........I just didnt want him to be bitten as they were out in the daylight which is unusual.

Possums aren't necessarily dumb. They just have limited eyesight so they don't react as one would expect from a "wild' animal - slower in both speed and reaction.

[Lawgirl]

It is fascinating reading you talking about possums.  The possums we have where I live in South Australia tend to be vegetarian, and are exceptionally good at getting into roof spaces and making a lot of noise at night, eating every piece of fruit or vegetables in our garden and being very stinky.

[D'Elle]

14 hours ago, gcv-border said:

Possums aren't necessarily dumb. They just have limited eyesight so they don't react as one would expect from a "wild' animal - slower in both speed and reaction.

This is correct. They are not in the least bit dumb. But as noted above they don't have the ability to move rapidly and have bad eyesight.

I always find it interesting when someone calls a species "dumb". There is no species of being that is "dumb". Each one is perfectly adapted to be what they are and to live in their environment. People tend to apply human standards to animals, and judge their intelligence by those standards, but of course other species do not conform to human standards, so it is not fair or accurate to decide a species is dumb based on how human beings measure intelligence.

All creatures are intelligent in being what they are. Of course, if you mess too much with the environment of any species, and crowd them out of space, as we have done all over the planet, some of those species, such as the coyote,  will adapt well and still thrive, and others will not. But that is determined by many factors, and has nothing to do with intelligence.

As scientists research and study more and more different species of animals they invariably discover that if they look deeply enough into the actions of any creature they find a great deal of natural intelligence in that creature. This has recently been shown in the study of octopus, for instance, and there are many others. Study opossums and you will find that they are highly intelligent animals.

[Mark Billadeau]

Are Virginia opossums really ecological traps for ticks? Groundtruthing laboratory observations

Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases Volume 12, Issue 5, September 2021, 101780

Abstract

Virginia opossums (Didelphis virginiana) are a common synanthrope in North America, and serve as host to many species of ectoparasites. Research on captive Virginia opossums estimated that opossums eat, on average, 5500 larval ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) per week. To investigate this apparent preference exhibited by opossums for ingesting ticks, we comprehensively analyzed stomach contents of 32 Virginia opossums from central Illinois. Using a dissecting microscope, we searched the contents exhaustively for ticks and tick body parts, without sieving or pre-rinsing the stomach contents. We did not locate any ticks or tick parts in the stomach contents of Virginia opossums. We also performed a vigorous literature search for corroborating evidence of tick ingestion. Our search revealed 23 manuscripts that describe diet analyses of Virginia opossums, 19 of which were conducted on stomach or digestive tract contents and four of which were scat-based analyses. None of the studies identified ticks in their analyses of diet items. We conclude that ticks are not a preferred diet item for Virginia opossums. Considering that wildlife unconditioned to laboratory conditions may exhibit non-typical behaviors, we recommend that lab-based studies of wildlife behavior be groundtruthed with studies based in natural conditions.

[beachdogz]

Also an article in Field and Stream noting the same:

https://www.fieldandstream.com/conservation/possums-dont-eat-ticks/

I was really hoping that it was true!

 

[D'Elle]

Interesting! 

I wonder if whether or not they eat ticks depends on the environment they are in. Probably if more delicious things are available they won't. But nevertheless, they are  interesting,  and a harmless species if they are left alone.  They have their place in the ecosystem.

I have had free range chickens as well, Mark Billadeau. Once the free range was a large fenced-in area - about an acre for a half dozen chickens - and they got shut into a coop at night for safety and to encourage them to lay their eggs inside. The other time they were someone's chickens who just wandered into my place and when the guy took them home they came back, so he let them go. I didn't fence them in, just let them be, and hunted for their eggs. (I had lots of time for that kind of thing at the time). They lasted a long time...over a year... and raised babies and all. Don't know where they hid at night. But of course eventually their numbers decreased and they were all gone, as will always happen unless there's a guard dog such as you have.  Much more likely to be coyotes than anything else that got them where I was at the time.

[Mark Billadeau]

Foxes wiped out our chickens (they had the run of the farm during the day and cooped at night) during the day; in one instance 7 were killed and the fox was spotted carrying one away.

I’m certain the opossum would have taken a chicken since it was hiding in the round bales where they were roosting during the day and occasionally laying.  It was spotted when hunting for eggs.

[Journey]

They may not be voracious tick eaters but they are lethal if you have horse and yet they are one of the very few animals in NA that are not capable of carrying/transmitting rabies.

[D'Elle]

17 hours ago, Journey said:

They may not be voracious tick eaters but they are lethal if you have horse and yet they are one of the very few animals in NA that are not capable of carrying/transmitting rabies.

How are they lethal if you have a horse?

[Journey]

They carry EPM - Equine Protozoal Myeloncephalitis.

[D'Elle]

Wow, I did not know that! Thank you for telling me.  Whatever it does to the horse, it sounds bad.

I have never heard of that. I've spent a great deal of time over the years on a cattle ranch where there are horses and opossums, and never heard anyone mention it; never heard of anyone's horse getting that. I wonder if it is mostly only found in certain parts of the country (?)

[Journey]

It appears to be less invasive in the west - https://aaep.org/horsehealth/epm-understanding-debilitating-disease

[D'Elle]

1 hour ago, Journey said:

It appears to be less invasive in the west - https://aaep.org/horsehealth/epm-understanding-debilitating-disease

That would explain it. I am exclusively a westerner!