Virginia Opossums may only live for 2 years, which means they need to grow up fast! Females are reproductively mature by 6 months, and males by 8 months. Mister H. Lecter is a great example of this. Just take a look at how fast he has grown! He came in about 6 weeks ago just 100g and is now over 600g and will be released soon. Go Lecter! (didn't necessarily want to put in all those half-asleep pictures of ME, but it DOES offer a scale!)

In addition to special formula, though he is now weaned, the opossums at WTS receive quite delectable dishes of fresh fruit, kitten chow soaked in apple juice, dry kitten & ferret food, fresh veggies, eggs (both raw & hard boiled), and mouse. Just take a look at what came by post the other day- 250 frozen weanling (i.e., weaned but young- which have the perfect balance of protein & calcium) mice.

A big thank you to all those who have made donations, as it is almost 75cents/mouse (shipping included) and I go through about 10/day- that adds up fast!! And, btw, cutting up mice for opossum dinners, is maybe one of the worst jobs at WTS. :( But the opossums love them, and so goes the circle of life :)

And just to end on a slightly more palatable note- palatable to humans at any rate... here's a cute picture of the male Downy woodpecker feeding his begging son at my feeder. Poor Pops looked bedraggled, and his son looked so fluffy and chubby. What a good dad! 

The time has come to tell the story of Mister H. Lecter, a 4 month old Virginia Opossum. He's about 4oz, or 110g. Lecter arrived about 10 days ago. He was disorientated, possibly due to an imbalance of calcium, to which opossums are prone. Lecter is adorable, and as with all opossums has crazy strong grasping hands that give him the ability to climb anything, and therein lies his tale of multiple escapes and various acts of troublemaking.

 
For the first few days I thought, how cute! He loves to climb in my hair! But being a still a bit wobbly, I had no idea what he was really capable of...

A few days after his arrival I received 5 more baby opossums, these are about 3 1/2 months old (NB: as with all marsupials, opossums are born much earlier in development than placental mammals- those animals who are nourished by a placenta in the womb- which means that a 3month old opossum is about equal in development to a newborn placental mammal.) Well, the next day I went to feed the new arrivals at 6am and the cozy lump in their hideyhole was much bigger- here's why...

That's Lecter- the bigger opossum in the box above, and you can see him with the little ones to the left. He had escaped, I have no idea how, from his cage and snuck into the babies cage next door.  So adorable! So I set up a bigger cage for all of them. What was great was that the little ones started figuring out how to eat solids by following his lead.

Well, the next day, that little Houdini had done it again...

So after this escape I secured the cage even more...

And, what do you know? He was gone once again the next morning! Not only gone, but there was plenty of evidence that he had been very active around WTS (I've got to get this darned room finished to eliminate all the fun hiding places for little runaways!).  However, I was confident that he would come out when he was hungry. Several days passed, and I thought that he may well have found a hole in the wall through to the outside.

I actually wasn't too worried as amazingly opossums are usually on their own by Lecter's age, though I did want to keep him for observation and until he was about 2lbs to give him more of a chance outside.

Day by day passed. And one afternoon when I was feeding the little ones, that funny hissing gasping opossum call suddenly started...it was Lecter, and here's where I found him (see below)- in the bin.

Little Lecter is now in "jail"- a big bird cage! I've separated him from the babies as I've since learned that opossums will cannibalize other opossums if they get a craving for their much needed calcium & protein. Oh my! I wonder if he was just fattening up the babies for a little midnight snack...!