Facing down the Wild O'Possum

I had a scare this morning. Before 7 a.m., too. And fortunately before my husband left for work. I had gone up the hill just before 6 a.m. to let out and feed my chickens. I noticed last night that a hen stayed on one of the nests, so I thought I'd open the outside door to that nest to drive her off. I just don't want to deal with a broody hen. So, about forty minutes or so later, my chickens started making a horrible racket. Clucking, crowing, cackling--general chicken-calling-for-help noises. I thought at first that hen was upset with that open door to her nest, but the racket kept on. So, I told my husband that I'd brave that aggressive red rooster and go up there to see. Well, I had no more stepped through the gate when I saw a HUGE 'possum staring at me just about ten yards up the path. Okayyyy. I yelled for my knight, held my walking stick ready, and backed out of there. My knight came running with his stick and held off that possum while I checked on the chickens and that hen in the nest. (She had left it, so I closed the door.) Now, possums are dumb creatures, and it was obvious from the first glance that we were not dealing with a rabid animal, so it took a bit for this dumb creature to get the idea that he wasn't wanted. My knight kept after that possum and herded him away from the chickens. He never did run, just lumbered. Finally, he squeezed himself through the fence and disappeared.

I'd rather face a possum than a raccoon, because raccoons are really small bears and just as dangerous; and there's more of a possibility of rabies in a coon than a possum, too. But this early in the morning!! More than an hour after full daylight!! We're not in a drought, and I know there must be plenty of game around for that possum, but he was right up there getting in my chickens' grain. He was big, too. Maybe he was old and had bad teeth. Who knows. I guess I won't be so complacent from now on and go up there with just my walking stick. I'll take the extra few seconds to bring along a stronger "friend" at my side.

{Shudder} I hate having to face a wild animal. Gives me the shakes, but at least I've learned what's really a dangerous situation up on my hill and what's not. I've noticed for the past week or so that something has been getting into my storage shed up there and moving aside a heavy cement block to get into the metal garbage cans where I store the grain. I get good grain for my birds, not just that cracked corn scratch that's really "dead food." Right now I have one can of black sunflower seeds and the other can with a nine-grain mixture--no cracked, dead grains. I guess that's pretty attractive to coons and possums, but I feed my chickens as well as I can because I want good eggs, and they've scratched their yard up so much over the past eight or nine years, that it's like a desert up there. Not even the poison ivy that used to grow so lushly up there like a carpet has been gone for a few years now, so they need good food.

Life just gets interestinger and interestinger.

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ADDENDUM:
Question: Do opossums carry rabies?
Answer: Any mammal can get rabies. However, the chance of rabies in an opossum is EXTREMELY RARE. This may have something to do with the opossum’s low body temperature (94-97º F) making it difficult for the virus to survive in an opossum’s body.