Possums In The Yard!

On August 17, 2008 around 10PM or so, a mama possum and her six babies were in a tree that kind of hangs over the back part of the fence in the back yard. The dogs must have heard them making noise or something, because they ran over barking hysterically and jumped up on the fence. They kept barking ferociously, and I thought they were attacking one of the cats. I ran outside, in my pajamas and barefoot, to see what the uproar was about.

I guess they really got excited when I showed up, because Ellie went crazy, barking and jumping on the fence. The other dogs joined in, and by the time I reached that back, very dark corner, whatever was on the fence fell into the yard. The dogs started attacking it. There were growls, snarls and hisses reverberating off the fence and shed. I made the dogs back off, screaming at them to stay back while trying to get someone to come out to help. I could hear scratching in the grass and was afraid they had hurt one of my cats. I was saying "here kitty kitty" over and over, but since I couldn't see anything and the cat didn't meow, I just knew he was hurt really bad.

I shooed the dogs back, ran into the house and grabbed the flashlight. When I got back to the corner and started shining the light around, I saw several pairs of eyes light up. Talk about surprise! There were several baby possums! A pair of eyes glowing on the other side of the fence was the mama, I'm guessing, or maybe another possum.

We finally got the dogs herded in the house without injury, thank goodness! The next morning somebody went outside (I can't remember who) and saw that the possums had taken up residence in a hole in the ground next to the house, right under Julie's bedroom window. Possums are nocturnal, so Julie shoved the little plastic pool over the hole, upside down, to keep the dogs off them. Oh wait, I remember now. Julie had taken Ellie and Shula outside and the dogs found them. Ellie was trying to pull the mama out by the tail and Julie finally got her off and away from the hole. That's when she put the pool over the hole.

I made several phone calls after 8AM, but couldn't find anybody willing to come out at remove the critters for less than $369... can you believe that?!? I had to be at work at 9:30, so after I got off work that afternoon, I started making calls again. I finally found a lady at a national wildlife volunteer organization, but she said that the only way they would take them was if the babies were orphaned. She was very helpful about how to make the possums want to leave and told me everything that we needed to do.

When it started getting dark, Endy and I went out making lots of noise so that they would want to leave. Nothing happened. They didn't come out of their hole. Finally Endy came up with the idea to flood them out of the hole. Part of the waterhose was thrown over the fence, so I went over there and kinked the hose while Endy went to put the end of the hose in the hole and turn the water on. Oh yeah, did I mention the hole is right under the water spigot?
When the hole started flooding, the babies started coming out. Endy was watching the hole. She told me to go ahead and fill it up so the mama would come out. I did, but the mama was dead. Four of the babies ran into a piece of rain gutter that was laying on the ground. The other two stayed close to the hole. I grabbed the dog crate that was on the patio and we scooped the two that were out into the crate, then Endy picked up the gutter pipe and dumped the other four into the crate.

This afternoon I finally contacted the right person at the wildlife organization. She contacted the volunteer closest to me and we made arrangements for me to drop them off at her house. Julie buried the mama in the side yard. Sorry to say, we did not have a funeral for it. The babies were delivered witout further delay to a wonderful lady that will raise them until they are old enough to be placed in the wild again. Alas, an end to yet another dramatic moment in my life.