As of this writing, I have 4 opossums under 100 grams who I am syringe feeding. Once they start lapping from a dish, I will turn them over to another rehabber. I love the little babies and get attached, but I am supposed to be taking a break, and they have room. I have 2 medical cases from another rehabber, and a new injured and debilitated male opossum. I still have Sarah and her pouchlings, and Meat Baby Food Mama and her 6. They are growing and climbing all over the enclosure they are in. They will be ready to go back to their home location soon.
Dave!
Heather of Vincent’s Place and an ardent supporter of all things animal, found Dave, barely able to stand, on her porch. She had a towel ready and good gloves and put him in a box, then called me. If you are an animal rescuer or animal magnet, always, ALWAYS keep a cardboard box, a towel and sturdy gloves at the ready. I’ve told people if you have to take off your shirt to grab the animal, do it. If you lose sight of an injured or ailing animal, and leave to get the needed tools, that will be the last time you ever see him. That is heartbreaking for the finder and myself. Sadly, that’s how it just happens.
Heather helps
She made a wonderful safe house for him, with a warm nest, a food and water bowl, and good ventilation holes. We weren’t sure he would make it through the night. He ate his way out of the box by the morning and so we knew he had a chance!
Vincent’s Place Sanctuary
Heather runs Vincent’s Place Sanctuary, a rescue for abandoned, unwanted and abused farm animals. Please visit her website to learn more about the sanctuary she is building and the animals he help!
Intaking Dave
Heather drove Dave to me in the morning. I don’t know what is going on with him. He was wobbling at Heather’s, and aggressive after waking. He let me pick him up, perform a brief exam, get a weight and put him in a comfortable bed. I i covered it up for privacy, and refilled his water bowl every time I heard him drinking. He also ate some soupy wet cat food.
Treating Dave
Antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, peace, quiet, clean water and nutritious food is what I can supply. He did the rest! I still don’t know why he is so down, but I am letting him do his thing, so to speak, and trusting I am doing what I can. If I saw fractures I would get radiographs. I see nothing more than superficial and healing wounds. But he is emaciated, dehydrated and weak.
Food!
Opossums get to be more fun as they start to wean. We get to introduce them to foods! I start off with small things like freeze dried or dehydrated dog or cat food. They are like tough marshmallows. I also make a nutritional staple I call mush. New treats like dried minnows, bits of scrambled egg (with crushed shell for calcium!), small pieces of apple, a chunk of sweet potato, any little food treat they might like. We get to start introducing them to toys now, too. Wheels, ladders, hammocks are all fun things. I like to pull up weeds with the dirt clods attached and put them in cages. It’s fascinating. Sometimes just a plain apple- not cut or peeled, just an apple, rolled in a cage is excitement for the whole night!
Mentoring new rehabbers
I have been meeting with the 4 nearby rehabbers to whom I have been teaching “All things opossum” on a regular basis, getting to see their babies grow and share my feedback. I also created a group chat where I post advice and facts as they randomly occur to me, or when I need to elucidate something I have taught. I am learning along side them! I spent so many years doing the same thing-because it worked- never stopping for a breath or to make sure what I was doing was caught up with the latest science and research. So far, so good, but I do see my blind spots and areas of improvement.
Learning from Facebook
I didn’t have any opossum mentors when I started and had to learn from Facebook groups. Those groups are often antagonistic and unhelpful and you don’t know whether what you are learning is right, or just a certain rehabber’s agenda. Facebook is not the place to learn how to rehabilitate animals! I am grateful I can mentor and be a static source of help for the new rehabbers.
Opossums-one size does not fit all!
A challenging aspect of working with opossums and teaching about them is the wide variety of behaviors and growth patterns. I can say, “at 100g start doing this”, but one litter or individual may be the target weight but not physically capable of whatever skill we are working on. The basic feeding process starts with tube feeding, then advances to syringe feeding, and then lapping from a dish. Maggie’s group bypassed the syringe feeding entirely! This made things confusing because they were too big to tube and yet were “supposed to be” lapping from a syringe. I borrowed them for a few days and got them fully lapping from a lick mat and bowl.
Diet challenges
That pattern continues as they grow. We move from lapping just formula to adding a mush recipe I feed called Rawsome Possum. A little is mixed in with the formula to thicken it, and the proportions are adjusted so they are eating mostly mush. This is when we introduce the water bottle. But if they don’t yet have the brain to figure out the water bottle, we have to keep them on formula. I start adding small solids at this time, a little dish of tiny cut up sardines, a few licks of yogurt, cut up pieces of butternut squash or apple. The two sickly babies, Biggler and Littler, will not eat anything but formula and cut up mice. Their protein and calcium needs are so high that their bodies demand pure meat. It is amazing to see someone not too much bigger than a mouse eat an entire mouse.
Diet challenges part 2
None of the opossum foods are inexpensive. The milk replacer powder itself and all the supplements becomes pricey over the long run so we buy 3.5 pounds of powder at a time, at about $45. Special treats like quail eggs, freeze dried raw puffs, dried minnows, and tiny shrimp are important and are good things to put on a wish list! Even the kibble I have used for years and recommend is special and can’t be purchased in stores. Of course it can be done differently, and thousands of opossums nationwide have just as many diets. But this works for me, and I hope for my trainees as well. I buy mice $500 at a time. That’s where a lot of the money I fundraise goes. To mice!
Babysitting and playdates
I am just as committed to helping my trainees raise the healthiest babies possible as I am to my own health, but I have had to make personal concessions. I am taking groups back for “babysitting” where I can observe and assess and suggest tweaks in caging or diet. In other cases, the rehabbers bring their groups by and I put them in the playpen to visit with. Everyone is doing great and the babies are all healthy (with some challenges and setbacks, but that is the nature of the opossums).
No one should try to raise an opossum without a license
For one thing, it’s illegal, and if the Department of Natural Resources gets a report that you have been doing so, they will investigate. They are armed and do not need a warrant to show up at your house, give you a citation, and take your babies. Some rangers will give the confiscated babies to a rehabber but they are not required to.
The other reason is the diet and needs of an opossum changes within a few days, within a litter, and depending on your husbandry. Most opossums I have received that were raised by the public have long term health issues caused by inadequate or downright poor husbandry. It is heartbreaking to receive an opossum that people claim to have loved, but only fed hot dogs and applesauce, and now the animal is permanently disabled from nutritional diseases.
2025 Sabbatical