I was driving home and on a road near my house there was a dead opossum that has been run over. there are always dead opossums around here but something told me to stop and look at it. i did and it was pregnant. there are still some babies that are alive and they crawled back into her stomach and just in there moving around. im so upset i dont know what to do! there is no animal control here in this small town. just an animal shelter that is closed untill monday. i called the police dept and the lady there said she was going to call a guy she knew that deals with wildlife but that "he may just tell me to let them die, i call you back if he wants to come out". well she has not called. i went back just now and moved the body to the side of the road....the babies are still in there. a guy stopped while i was in my car and asked what was wrong. i explained the situation and do know what he said??? *in a southern redneck accent* "ya know oppossums are just big ol' overgrown rats is all they are" I said "so they are not worth helping, is that what you are saying?" and he said "yeah really i am" and then as he started to drive off i yelled "asshole" (I hope he heard it). is there ANYTHING i can do???? my parent told me not to touch them as the babies will bite and they could have rabies. im so upset right now.
Elle, Get a cardboard cat carrier, put a soft towel at the bottom; use gloves to move them from the mother to the carrier and then go to a veternarian. This may or may not cost a little money; chances are that they will at least give you some instructions (for no charge) on what to do in order to keep them alive and this should be inexpensive. Also when you have time go to some web sites do a quick study to find out the basics required for raising them until they are able to fend for themselves. In the meantime I will do some study and repost here within 12 or so hours but you should get them to safety ASAP if you want to keep alive. David .
the lady did infact call me back late last night and told me not to touch the babies, that the wildlife guy would be there first thing in the morning. why he wanted to waste time i dont know but i got up early and went out to where the body was today and the body and the babies are all gone. the only trace of them is the bloody towel still there that i used to move the body. so i guess he took them. i cannot get that image of the babies out of my head, it was so disturbing thank you for your help natural.
Elle, For your own edification and peace of mind (and mine as well), maybe you could contact the person who contacted the "wildlife guy" so that you can find out what happened; the possibility exists that other creatures had them for "dinner" but I would assume that the mother's body would have been moved as well ? Opossums are wonderful creatures, I have gotten to know a few of them in my time (up close and "personal"). But caring for newborns is another story, obviously. Here are some of those links just for reference, the first one is the Google search page that I utilized: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=opossum+babies+feeding&spell=1 http://www.awrc.org/Baby%20Opossums.htm http://www.2ndchance.info/raisepossum.htm http://www.geocities.com/crawdadcreekrehab/OrphanedPossum.html Peace, David .
Oh good luck! My mother once found an injured opposum and took it back home in a crate and nursed it back to health. It ate alot of veggies! I would also definitly make some calls to see what happened. Let us know!
i have called a few times over the last couple of days (unfortunatley i didnt ever get the ladies name.....she was really rude to me about everything). whoever has been answcering the phone seems to know nothing about it and by my third call she seemed to be getting annoyed at me (it is the police dept). so i dont know...........im still hoping for the best tho and i apprechiate your responses. atleast if this happens again i will be a little more prepared and may not rely on a someone else to help out.
oh one other thing....are oppossums considerred a "marsupial"? they are not in the rodent family, are they?
if your in florida dont call local police call the fish and game department they have licenced wildlife rehabers that that take care of them. but till they come get it get them off the road and keep them warm. have any experience in bottle raising that type of animals? you can call reviavle animal care and get the correct nutrient formula for opps also to make a milk suplament that suits their needs. plus opps are kinda ugly but make cool pets. better than a racoon they dont tend to get into as much trouble. and if your worried about rabbies try this to find out what a threat it really is. find a documented case of rabies, not an expected case often racoons are said to have rabbies but its often just destemper if those babies mother had rabies they would be daed already.
The CDC archives has a rabies case from a number of years back where a man, I believe in Mexico, was given a young puppy for a present and unbeknownst to him the puppy had rabies; he was bitten, he killed the puppy, and traveled to Florida and died there. Always use gloves and realize that you need to be conscious of transmission; conscious of open wounds and of getting wounded by the critter. And if you are wounded the animal must be observed; I do not recall the requirements for the decision to implement post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for rabies. As unusual as this my sound, although there are only a few cases at most in the US per year, worldwide approximately 40,000 die of rabies a year. ***[[symtomatic]Rabies without post or pre exposure treatment with the exception of approximately 6 cases in recorded history has always been fatal; all of these patients had varying degrees of brain damage (there are some possible cases among trappers of long-term sub-clinical rabies).] ***[edit 041106: the text above in parentheses is incorrect; only one of these cases involved a person who did not receive PEP]. .
In the county I live in, the last case of confirmed rabies was in 1991. It was a horse, which they beleived was given rabies by a bat. At least 3 or 4 of our neighbor's kids have to get rabies series a year (very painful shots) because they approached a "dead" possum and were bitten, or got bitten by one of our many racoons. skunks, woodchucks or other wildlfe. A rabies series is very painful, it makes the patient very sick and my kids know to avoid wounded and "dead" animals like the plague. I will, on occasion, call Animal Control, but in our area, seeing a dead possum, woodchuch or racoon is a 4 times weekly event. My Malamute kills at least 10 a summer. There are a LOT of them, they breed like crazy, they have a lot of babies, and they are not in danger of becoming extinct. I feel bad when one of our Mals kills one of the baby ones, but that's the circle of life. Our WildLife Preserve will take baby racoons, but not baby bunnies or baby squirrels. The death rate, in motherless squirrels and bunnies is almost 100%. Their milk is not reproducable. Ocassionally, a squirrel baby makes it, but the bunnies never do. The WildLife Preserve usually dosen't take Possums, because there are so many of them, and they are really dangerous, if you mistake a wounded one, for dead. They "play possum" and then bite you (and cause you to have to get a Rabies Series) when they wake up. (My dh usually wacks the thing on the head with a shovel before trying to move it to it's grave. He had a Rabies Series once, never again.)
i've seen them do the "dont hurt me cause im already dead" thing but this one was for sure dead....her stomach was open and most of the contents were on the floor. actually there is one that keeps coming onto our porch to eat the cat food. i felt bad putting up wire around the deck to keep it out but i had to as i have cats that are outdoor indoor (and two dogs) and i cannot take the chance that one of them has a run in with the oppossum. so we put up the wire and all was quiet for about two days and suddenly he shows back up. i checked the wire and everything was secure....i was like how the hell is this little guy getting on our porch? the only way the cats actually get on from outside is jumping up on the rail which they can do fine but a possum could not. well one night i caught him in action. there is a 10 foot plant that grows next to the deck (where we did not secure it since it is several feet high) and he was climbing it to get onto the deck! this plant is not very stable and pretty thin, i had no idea he would be able to do that and had not even thought of it....but i guess he outsmarted me.
Lactating domestic mother cats have been known to allow baby squirrels to feed, and I know that once two of my cats had litters at the same time and allowed "kitten swaps" for feeding. And, yes, PEP is no fun; there are some interesting articles about surveys of arctic trappers that skinned animals without gloves (mostly foxes) and who had never been vacinated, or had post-exposure treatment, who showed significant rabies titers; in order words they appeared to have sub-clinical rabies; . Jenna Giese's case is interesting and apparently holds some prospect for treatment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanna_Giese and http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=373532 (see the correction to post#11). The lesson as Maggie has pointed to is to use caution when approaching critters. , David .
