The Retriever, Dog, & Wildlife Blog

Posted in Absolute Piffle, wildlife | Tagged opossum, Virginia opossum | 10 Comments

10 Responses

1. on September 30, 2010 at 7:30 pm | Reply Jess

   Our dogs would have eaten part of it before dragging it into the house.

   
   
   • on September 30, 2010 at 7:36 pm | Reply retrieverman

     LOL

     If you really stress an opossum, green stuff comes out of their anuses.

     I don’t know of any dog that will tolerate that.

     I’ve also seen opossum carcasses rot where there are plenty of dogs, foxes, and coyotes.

     They won’t touch them.

     About the only thing I’ve seen that will actually hunt opossums for food are owls.

     
     
     • on September 30, 2010 at 7:57 pm | Reply Jess

       I had some neighbors with Jack Russells that kill a possum and ate part of it. The killing was horrifically noisy on the part of the possum.

       
       
     • on September 30, 2010 at 8:28 pm | Reply dodo

       There is actually dog and cat food made from possum. http://www.addictionfoods.com/usa/prod_dog_brushtail.php

       
       
       • on September 30, 2010 at 8:34 pm | Reply retrieverman

         That’s brush-tailed possum from Australia.

         It looks and behaves nothing like a Virginia opossum (opossums live in the Americas and possums live in Australia).

         A brush-tailed possum is more like a raccoon and behaves like one : http://www.llamaleisure.com.au/Brush%20Tail%20Possum%20(1).jpg

         They were introduced to New Zealand as a fur-bearer, and they have become a major ecological problem.

         So it makes sense to turn them into dog food.

         Virginia possums are usually so nasty in taste that the only things that will eat them are birds of prey.

         People who eat them catch them alive and feed them table scraps for a few days until they no longer taste so horrible from eating roadkill.

         
         
2. on September 30, 2010 at 8:37 pm | Reply Bridget

   What kinda dog the guys have on the film? Quess a retriever.
   And a possum looks like a half marten, half rat.

   
   
   • on September 30, 2010 at 8:44 pm | Reply retrieverman

     I think it’s a boxer.

     Actually Virginia opossums look like Asian moonratss and gymnures:

     http://photos.mongabay.com/07/0328echinosorex_gymnurus.jpg

     Moonrats and gymnures are placental mammals in the same family that includes hedgehogs.

     
     
3. on October 2, 2010 at 2:26 pm | Reply Lane Batot

   Alligators will readily eat American ‘possums, and of course ‘possums will eat ‘possums–one often sees a dead ‘possum on the road, and then in succeeding days you’ll see another hit in or around the same spot–attracted to the scent of carrion. And of course vultures and crows like ‘possum road kill. Reminds me of the joke,”Why did the chicken cross the road? To show the ‘possum it could be done!” But it is true most predators don’t care for ‘possum unless they are VERY hungry. My wolf hybrids, who regularly caught and ate many different kinds of critters, refused to eat two animals–’possums and foxes(both reds and greys). My Catahoula used to grab ‘possums and FLING them enormous distances, without serious harm to the ‘possums–he obviously didn’t even want to bite down on them! I thought for a time of breeding for this characteristic in Catahoulas, and starting up a “‘possum flinging” sport!(just kidding!). My own hillbilly relatives, back during the Depression, used to tree ‘possums with their hounds/curs, and keep them in a hutch and feed them vegetable scraps for a coupla weeks before cooking and eating them–just as you mentioned, Retrieverman. I have eaten it(baked ‘possum and sweet taters is a classic Southern dish!), and I liked it! It is very greasy, but cooked right, is quite tender and tasty(I LIKE greasy meat!). I have been on many a ‘possum hunt, as well as just hand-caught and moved or played around with them–it is quite easy and safe to do if you know how. Just quickly grab them by their tails and hoist them up(they hang by their prehensile tails, so this doesn’t damage or hurt them in any way), but you have to keep “shaking them down”, to keep them from climbing up and biting you(they have a powerful bite!). Just kinda jiggle them back-and-forth to keep them off balance till you get them moved where you want them(your mother-in-law’s bedroom, your neighbor’s bathroom, or perhaps the choir stand of your local church just before Sunday service! You’ll be guaranteed to hear notes from the choir never before enjoyed by the congregation!)…….

   
   
4. on October 4, 2010 at 6:02 pm | Reply Patrice

   What I want to know is — did they give the dog the promised cookies?

   
   
5. on October 13, 2010 at 9:24 am | Reply Andy Ward

   Unbelievable, let the dogs have the opossum, I kept thinking, “why are you not letting the dogs have it”. My farm collies kill opossums like cats kill mice, all the time, no opossum is safe on my farm.

   
   

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