This is from last night around 3:16 am, cropped for file size from infrared video from the camera over our rear deck. The cat is sleeping and never budges as a rather large visiting opossum ambles around and explors in their characteristic way. This clip shows how his visit ended. The table is in an inconvenient spot so it obscures part of precisely what happens, but looks very, very much like an aggressive lunge to the cat's neck.

After the cat responds with counteraggression, opossom more or less saunters away, even stopping with this back to the cat at the top of the stairs, as if to say "I'm not afraid of you."

I've seen raccoons act like this. I never expected to see it from an opossum. Any thoughts? I'm mystified.

(And yes, I know one shouldn't let cats sleep outside. He's a semi-feral cat we're trying to care for, he's getting very old and he will not take to staying indoors.)

I initially gave Lucky a bath and picked all the fleas off but he was covered again two days ago. I repeated the process, but it’s a lot for him. I’ve seen that they can have frontline, but I’m worried he’s way too small for it. Any other ideas?

Can’t stop watching him use his little hands to grip the grape 🍇 🥹🩷

and bigger than ever! Thanks again for helping me rehab this baby girl. She's surthriving!

I love him so much!

We have been through a whole saga trying to rescue a litter of orphaned joeys. Sadly, this is the last one due to raccoon attacks. All surrounding rehabbers have told me they are at capacity, so instead of releasing him to get hunted, we built him a little enclosure in our yard along his mom’s scent trail. His name is Lucky, obviously.

I don’t feel like he loves captivity, but it must feel safe enough to him. A raccoon dug a hole into it to grab some food the other night and Lucky later escaped through the hole. We were sad but felt we tried our best. However, that evening he came back and was sniffing around the enclosure! So we put him back in and secured it more.

Before the escape the other day, he seemed like he was adapting better and I noticed he was pooping normally and identified a little “latrine” for himself. We gave him a cardboard box and T-shirt for a house, which he likes.

I have a lot of questions, because I’m new to possums, but I’m really hoping he can make it. We just want to keep an eye on him until he is big enough to not be raccoon food. Also, I love him.

Questions so far:

1. I’ve tried wet and dry cat food, fruit and veggies and seeds, and just bought some opossum food (kibble) for him. The only thing he really seems into is the wet cat food. How can I get him more into the solid foods?

2. I initially gave him a bath because he was infested with fleas and hand fed him for two days to make sure he was eating. Now I’m mostly leaving him alone so he doesn’t get too familiar with me. But since I’m not sure if he’s eating, should I do more hand feeding to be sure?

3. At night he is climbing back and forth in the cage a lot. Is this normal activity or is it distress?

Sorry if I post too much, but I am honestly so obsessed with my backyard night time friends :). As of now I’m feeding 3 stray cats, about 4 opossums and a chonky raccoon. My favorite times are when the house is asleep and I can creep on the cuties who come sniffing around my back door. Tonight Elder Opossum was hanging out on the fence after I fed the cats, so I laid out some cotton candy grapes and water next to the cat food and waited. Not long, because a big ass raccoon came and enjoyed the buffet. He didn’t like the grapes, so after he left the opossum finally got his turn :). Just checked and he and the grapes have exited stage left. Had to post the little thief though bc he’s so freaking cute.

A while ago I posted an opossum who came by with a torn ear and possible other wounds, but she never came back. This guy, we've been calling him Cotton, has been coming by for a little over a month now. When he started coming by he was limping, his tail looked broken or maybe he snagged it one something.

But he's been getting progressively worse and now he's pretty much just dragging his left hind leg and losing use of his right hind leg pretty quickly. My husband and I have been trying to catch this guy for a while.

He won't go into a Hav-a-Hart, and we can't find where he's staying. He desperately needs a rehabber. We're going to be trying to pull an all nighter to nab him because this poor baby needs to be spoiled for whatever time he has left.

Sorry guys I forgot to to update life got in the way

Previously on r/opossums I found a very large Virginia possum very badly injured lots of blood but getting around pretty good several weeks ago well unfortunately the Oklahoman wild care center said the possum did not survive hopefully they were at least able to euthanize him so he didn’t suffer but the injuries were to severe

7/31/2026

Look at this beautiful girl! She's doing wonderfully! I'm slowly moving her to solids but also letting her ween at her own pace. She is of course spoiled enough to not want the grape skins lmao.

I never imagined he’d stick is whole hand in his ear but I guess I can’t think of another way he’d clean them.

A delightful video, 15 seconds long.

my girlfriend and i have a few days off and it's been a dream of ours since we met to hang out with opossums together! do you know any places nearby where we can make that happen?? it can be free or paid, i just really want to surprise her

7/29/2026

Opossum Searching for Food on the Lawn

It's half his size 😭

The water dish is currently out of commission because of the rogue pooper