What do Possums eat, and are the mean?

Question

I have one that comes in my back yard. So I do not let my children out at night fall.

Answer 1

HI, I've had pet opossums and lived close to wild ones most of my life. Opossums are omnivorous eating meat (fish, frogs, tadpoles, crayfish, etc.) when they are available. They eat fruit like grapes, apples, and persimmons. They eat a lot of insects and such like crickets, worms, cicadas, and June beetles.
Wild ones will eat waste food garbage, processed foods like corn bread, and cat food.

I generally fed the pet ones apples, grapes, a bit of meat, and cat food. I also let them forage for themselves quite a bit under streetlights.

Opossums domesticate very easily if started young, but they seem to have individual personalities in which some acclimate to human contact better than others do.

The Opossum Rescue of Southern California has assured me that opossums do not carry rabies or other diseases that humans can contract, marsupials - lower body temperature, different infectious agents. They do carry fleas.

Most of the wild opossums I have encountered have been very slow and timid. Approach slowly and do not threaten or corner the opossum and encountering them in the wild should not endanger either party. I have handled wild opossums without getting bitten but I AM AN EXPERIENCED PROFESSIONAL ANIMAL HANDLER. I do not recommend that inexperienced people try this.

Opossums are a wild part of our natural environment that we can enjoy in our own back yards. Use the proper degree of respect and caution for wild nature that it needs and deserves and you will be able to enjoy and learn from it at close quarters in a manner most people these days never suspect could happen. Teach your children a respect for nature and it can open a new world or learning and exploration for them as well.

emucompboy's answer is good, although I have only found one opossum with fleas. I suspect that this is worse in some areas than others.

http://www.opossum.org/

Answer 2

I have a few wild possums in the back yard. The mother birthed them under the house, and a baby possum calling his mom is the sneeziest cough sound you'll ever hear. You can actually find a sound clip if you google.

My possums aren't tame. They act mean as hell until my big dog gets in their face, and then they roll over and play dead. I have picked them up when they are acting dead by their tail so I won't get bit if they decide to wake up. They aren't too big in the teeth, but like a snake their teeth are sharp. Shouldn't hurt too much if you get bit. I get bit by snakes all the time. My cats do a number on me also, but what do you expect when you mess and rough house with them?

As far as eating, those possums eat about as much as a cat, unless it's winter time. And then they are pretty voracious. Mine love the dry cat food I keep in a bin on the back porch. They keep taking the lid off and try to drag the whole caboodle off into the woods. They do this every night even though my dogs chase and scare the bejesus out of them.
Possums are cool. Funny thing is they don't freak out my cats and adolescent kitten. As ugly as an opossum is, you'd think the cats would run. But the cats even stay near the porch even when the possum comes and they don't mind going out all hours of the night.

Answer 3

An opossum will not attack your kids. Most likely it will hide from them. Or, if startled, it may go into a seizure ("play possum") If it does, you can pick it up and carry it around. [I'm not recommending this, but I can't resist it. It will stay more or less "dead" until I put it down and leave it.] When you leave it alone, it will revive sooner or later and walk off. If you corner a possum and it doesn't faint, it may bite in self defense, but it doesn't carry any diseases that humans can catch. It has carnivore-type teeth, sort of like a dog's.
They are known for eating dog food, cat food, and kitchen scraps from the garbage can, if they can get it. They are omnivorous and eat a lot of stuff, notably garden snails. If you have an opossum, you won't have snails.

Answer 4

What Do Possums Eat

Answer 5

The 2 wandering possums that have made our yard their home, are timid but hearty eaters. They seem to like dry cat food, small carrots, rains, craisins, raw eggs, popcorn (unsalted and unbuttered), sunflower seeds, corn, lettuce, brown bread with sesame seeds, peanuts and corn. Apparently they do not like boiled potatoes. I'd like to make a cooked rice mixture with maybe apples and craisins or chicken leftovers. I'm careful not to give them any meats that have been salted or glazed, barbecued, etc. Chicken parts can be cooked in low-sodium chicken broth and added to rice. The Winter here was unexpectedly very cold for about a week, including snow and ice. I'm surprised the critters survived. We have 3 empty dog houses and I was hoping they would wind comfort amongst the straw bedding but I've never seen them in there. Maybe residue dog smells are in the bedding. I'm researching more on opossums cause I kind of like that they find comfort and peace here. Even the 9 cats get along with them, as I witnessed one night when I opened the front door and they were sitting together, like old friends.

Answer 6

I just found a baby possum in my back yard. I had been watering and he apparently got wet. He walked right up to me and stood there shivering as if to say: "Please don't water around here." I found his mother dead about a week ago in the same back yard and buried her. So this must be an orphan. I offered it avocado, and polenta and some water but it wouldn't go near any of those things. It just turned around and resumed foraging for whatever it was seeking among the dead leaves and dried grass. Maybe it will make friends with me. It wasn't afraid of me at all.

Answer 7

You can let your children out.

Possums are opportunistic omnivores. They prefer insects and insect larvae, snails and slugs, and cat food. If you don't want to feed the opossum, don't leave cat food out. The internet says they'll also eat fruits, but I've never seen that.

They won't attack unless cornered, so don't corner them. Their first response is to run. Second response is to show teeth and hiss. If injured, they'll play dead.

If you tell your kids to keep away from the opossum, your kids should be fine.

Don't let them into your house. They have fleas, I mean LOTS of fleas.

Answer 8

Tonight I saw three adolescent opossums in my back yard. I think my bird feeder attracted them. I figured that they must be young litter mates because they ran around very fast, back and forth through my garden, chasing each other, which surprised me as I thought the animal was a slow mover. Not these three! I think I'd seen their mother two winters ago eating my stray cat's cat food on the back porch. She was very big and fat (pregnant?) and ate delicately with her front paws like little hands. UGLEY! otherwise though. She seemed unafraid of me but I didn't get too close.

Answer 9

Possums are very timid creatures and present no real danger to humans. Their diet consists mostly of insects, worms and some forms of vegetation like berries, nuts grains. As you have pointed out, they are nocturnal but even in the dark they will run from humans. They are a mainstay in some diets and their meat has very high protein and very low fat!

Answer 10

We have one that comes in the back yard all the time, the cats go nose to nose with it. Basically, they are very timid unless they are frightened, and or cornered. Then they'll probably just hiss until the person steps back.

Keep say...five feet away from it, no loud noises or fast motions to scare it, don't corner it. And the kids will be fine, probably good lessons for them. I know that sounds a little scary, but it IS a wild animal and you sound like you want to make SURE.

They are vegetarians.