Possums eat ticks?

U

Unlicensed Dremel

Moderator
I read this the other day.

I will usually shoot possums, on the theory they eat turkey and quail eggs. But if this is true, I'm going to leave them alone.
 
I don't see them as doing any damage to the tick population. Before a tick actually gets onto an animal and can start really growing, he is a very small little critter.
 
Opossums are omnivores. They eat anything they can catch. They do not specialise in eggs of any kind. They do help control rats, venomous snakes, assorted insects, carrion, snails, slugs, etc, etc.
Like Doyle says, there's not much to a tick. Even when full grown.
 
Possums get a pass

I'm going to leave them alone.
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Why would you want to do anything else. The worst thing a possum did to me, was scare the crap out of me while walking to my deer-stand. They will eat just about anything. When I was a kid, we use to snare rabbits and once in awhile, we would catch a possum. We used to trade them at a Hobo camp for whatever they had. They were glad to eat them and offered us a taste. We passed on that one. .... :rolleyes:

Be Safe !!!
 
Do as you like for whatever reason suits you BUT I'll kill them anytime I see them. Totaling the ones I catch in coon traps and the ones that show up around the house and barn, I'd guess I kill 40-50 possums per year.
 
We used to trade them at a Hobo camp for whatever they had.
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I think that is now one of those "disparaging phrases". The new politically correct term would be "outdoor minded mobile residence":D
 
Possums are survivors , been here for ever .Note the 54 teeth. They eat much of anything.
Ticks have spread to many areas last year and with it Lyme desease !! I've had my Lyme for a few years and may not ever leave ! Be careful .
Guinea Hen is about the best to clear an area of ticks .Chickens will also but not as quickly as GH.
 
It is all a bunch of crap. Yes, possems eat ticks. That is because they pick them out of their hair. Unless you catch one on a rainy, muddy night, their fur is usually quite clean. I suspect they clean themselves up a lot. That last place I lived the neighbors let their guinea hens run wild all day. They had a good sized flock of them. I could not walk across the back yard with out picking up a tick. I can't see either one putting a dent in the tick population.
 
If ticks are thick enough in an area to make it worthwhile for the possum to spend time hunting them down and feeding on them, they are so thick the dent the possum makes in them ain't gonna make a difference. I've watched large flocks of turkeys feeding on grasshoppers in the fall and have shot birds whose crop was bursting with the red-legged bugs. Still the hoppers swarmed everywhere as I walked the field to retrieve the bird. Shooting one or two birds didn't make much of a difference one way or the other....I doubt shooting one or two possums would be any different.
 
If you have horses you may not want possums around as they do spread a disease that gets in the nervous system of a horse most often leading to the euthanizing of the horse.
Needless to say possums don't last long around my place.
 
A time to kill !!!

The new politically correct term would be "outdoor minded mobile residence"
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That is so true and funny. Every time I try to navigate through the "politically-correct" minefield, I wind up stepping in it. ..... :eek:

they do spread a disease that gets in the nervous system of a horse most often leading to the euthanizing of the horse.
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Ah, now we have a good reason to "dispatch" them or is it "harvest" them?

Whenever I see a non-venomous snake in the yard, I don't tell my wife. She believes that the only good snake, is a dead snake. .... ;)

Be Safe !!!
 
If you have horses you may not want possums around as they do spread a disease that gets in the nervous system of a horse most often leading to the euthanizing of the horse.
Needless to say possums don't last long around my place.
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Exactly. It's known as Equine Protozoal Myeloencephalitis, or EPM. We've lost several horses to it. It's a hideous disease and opossums are a known vector.
 
Why would you want to do anything else
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As I said immediately before my quote you posted, they eat quail and turkey eggs.

Whether there's much to a tick isn't really the issue. The issue is, "do they, or do they not, reduce the tick population?" Even if they only reduce it a little bit that's a very good thing. A lady here in Okla. just this summer had to have both arms and both legs amputated from Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

There's not much to an ant, either, but anteaters make an entire life's living off of them. If you eat enough of anything, it adds up. And goodness knows, there are plenty of ticks. And a possum is smaller than an anteater, in relative sizes to the prey in question.

So the question remains whether they eat enough ticks to make a difference.
 
Yes, ant eaters live off small ants (actually, more termites than real ants). However, their tongues are highly specialized for gathering large quantities of the little critters. Possums don't have that equipment.
 
possoms

Well Corpus Christi has about a zillion of them they spread Murine Typhus which is common here the murine typhus is spread by being bitten by a flea that has been on the possum so possums are not loved here.
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Fleas and all other blood-sucking bugs spread all kinds of diseases, no matter which host animal they ride. It would be a lot harder to catch the diseases without the bugs. Usually sick animals wouldn't transfer it to people. But then people probably spread more disease than the bugs.
 
There are several marsupials in the New World. The Virginia Opossum is the only one common to the US.
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maybe you missed the thread topic.
also, what other marsupials are native to north America?
 
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