This post is dedicated to Joanna & Larry. Larry is a Virginia Opossum and Joanna rescued him last autumn. She really went the extra mile and as there were no rehabilitators in her area she learned everything that she could about opossums and saved Larry's life!
People like Joanna who have had an opossum in their life know just how great they are! Wild Things has had quite a few this year. Here is a picture of Mama Opossum and a couple of her babies. Mama was hit by a car while carrying all 11 babies in her pouch. 6 died at the accident site, and she had bad lacerations in her pouch, but incredibly she and 5 of her babies survived.
When she arrived at WTS there were a couple of little orphan opossums here. She started calling to them across the room, and they called back. I put them together and she instantly shoved them in her pouch and adopted them. This happened on Mother's Day!
And the babies keep arriving! This angry little missy was found at a local laundromat, trapped, and brought to WTS. She was in good shape, just needed a week or so to get back on her feet and pack on a few ounces. She has since been released and is living in the woods here. The night I let her go she ran into the woods never looking back- it's a lot nicer here than downtown at a laundy! All that I could see of her in the darkness was her tail held high as she disappeared into the night.
It's time to talk opossum (pronounced "POSSum")! Wild Things has had 14 opossums come to stay this summer, and all but one have been successfully released back into the wild.
Virginia opossums are North America's only marsupial. Marsupials give birth to young that are undeveloped. The young then crawl into a pouch on the mother and attach to a nipple. Here they continue to grow and start emerging from the pouch to explore at about 3 months of age. Most marsupials live Down Under (e.g., kangaroos, koalas, wombats, tasmanian devils). Quite apart from their gestational differences from placental mammals (mammals who have a placenta and who give birth to more developed young, like us!), marsupials have other interesting biological differences. For example, they have no corpus callosum, the main bridge of neurons that communicates between the two halves of the brain. They have other ways that the opossite sides of their brains exchange information, but differences like this suggest that marsupials broke off from the rest of the mammals a long time ago on the evolutionary tree of life.
Opossums generally have large litters and live only a few years in the wild. They are nocturnal and though all the ones that I have raised are sweet with me, they can be pretty aggressive. Because they do not have a well developed sucking reflex and there are so many in each litter, babies are all tube fed (the feeder, i.e. me, inserts a tiny tube down their throats and into their tummies) to ensure that they get all the nutrients they need in a timely fashion!
Everyone has a different personality, like Itsy-Bitsy below! He was such a funny little fellow! And then there was Jelly Bean, who spent a week in a local bakery before being caught. During that week she lived on jelly beans and came in with flourescent green poop to proove it. She was not very impressed with me and my healthy nutrition regime for her. Everytime I picked her up she squireted explosive diarrhea at me as a defense, and chomped my finger rather badly!
Here is beautiful Suzanne, her son Gus (dressed as Mr. Incredible!), and one of the friendly little opossum babies. Suzanne is a great supporter of Wild Things!
Below is a picture taken on the night of a release. They may not be sure at first, but then they disappear into the woods. It's sad to see them go, and I worry about them! But I know they are a good size to do well on their own!
The blue bin in the front of their cage is their litter box- yes! They are litter trainable, which makes them very good guests to look after! :)
And one last one, Itsy-Bitsy, now much bigger, just before his release, enjoying the luxury of Wild Things!!
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!
