Backyard visitors

So the other day, I happened to walk past the back deck door and looked out.....

I saw this Possum trying to get into the dog and chicken food in the containers on the deck. 

I set my trap trying to catch THIS





I considered briefly making some of this: 





I dismissed that idea since I haven't caught the main ingredient.... yet. 

and ended up this morning having caught THIS
Since cats have killed several of my chickens in the past, cats are not welcome and have to go. 




I will keep trying. Creamed Possum's starting to sound pretty good...... 

Well, I guess you just have to feed all those animals, all of them. He, he, he, he, he, in the wild.

Ya, you never know what you'll catch!

I've seen my share, but you don't want them in your backyard if the neighbors have a dog (or dogs).  They'll "play possum" (i.e., they won't move) and the dogs will go bananas barking.  I once had to go outside in the middle of the night and spanked one to get it to move (not recommended, they have very sharp teeth if they feel threatened - mine looked shocked that I did that - lol).

The problem with Possums is they are nasty critters. They will do some damage to chickens. Since they eat just about anything..... they can pose a danger to roosting chickens.

a few months back... after midnight both times, and one of those times, it was raining.... My wife woke me up saying there's something wrong with the chickens.... go check on them...

So, I got some shoes on, and a jacket and grabbed my flashlight and headed out into the dark. First time, a possum was in the chicken pen and the birds were going nuts. totally freaked out.  I tried for several minutes to get the possum out. Finally, it found the open door, quite by accident I believe. 

Second time, it was under the roof, and above the bird netting.... I had secured the pen better from the last time..... it turned and went down the back side and over the fence into the neighbor's yard. 

I have heard that a possum will try to take a bite out of a roosting chicken. 

The problem with cats..... I generally have a live and let live attitude about cats...... however, we have had backyard chickens now for close to 20 years. Some became more like pets, and one in particular was something special. She would roam free most of the time and when my girls were in the yard with friends, I would see them run into the front yard and them after a few minutes the girls would run into the back yard as children tend to do when playing..... the chicken was running right behind them flapping her wings and running to keep up with the girls.  

If you were setting on the deck, she would come up to you, and if she decided she liked and trusted you, she would jump into your lap. Generally, this would scare the heck out of people if we hadn't warned them. If you had some sort of food..... she would definitely be jumping up to get a bite. She would go to visit the neighbors.... lots of cool stories center around that chicken. Her name was Olivia. 

One day the girls came home from school and found her dead in the back yard.... head chewed off.  A neighbor's cat had done it. Later, we had more chickens and I found several of them dead in the back yard from another cat..... same thing.... heads chewed off, feathers all over the place. 

So I relocate the cats and possums. I don't kill them. I carry the possums out a few miles into the countryside and let them go near a stream. I carry the cats to the local shelter and let them have the cat and possibly put it up for adoption.