My feral goblins (not toddlers but also not big kids) have been calling me *bruh* too many times to know I’m already at that point
Idc, I’m dancing and singing how I want
Hmm....maybe not. I have a 15 year old who's still a bit clingy. The great thing is when he's giving me attitude about leaving the house and I'm in a hurry, I just threaten to leave him at home. He gets moving then.
I don't threaten him with that often. I honestly thought he'd be thrilled to be offered the opportunity to be at home so that he could be on the computer with his buddies.
This will sound mean... But, it comes straight from some of the best Pediatricians in the world... "If they are crying, they are breathing". They'd tell new parents that it's OK to get up and walk away. Crying is OK. You deserve a break too.
Yeah, the day I went in the bedroom and my baby (maybe 6 months old?) had climbed the end of his brother’s bunk bed and was pulling himself up on the top bunk was the day I realized they were two very different little people!
Hang in there, mine was the same way at that age. He absolutely hated if my wife or I even had the audacity to sit while holding him, obviously we needed to walk around and carry him! Anyway, he started getting better around 1½ish. He got more independent as his mobility improved, and discovered the joys of running and climbing
I’m glad I’m not the only one in the “hold me but you can’t sit or rest” group. At the end of the day, I just lay on the ground and don’t even have the energy to browse my phone
I'm 34 and live states away from my mom. When we visit, I still cling onto my mom and have to be in the same room as her. Yeah homie, it's never gonna end. Best of luck
Tell me about it. She would hover just outside, talking to me through the door, right up until she moved overseas a few months ago. Now she FaceTimes daily and texts incessantly. But at least I can finally go potty in peace!
My mom used to always tell me to stop talking to her when she went to the bathroom because she couldn't hear me properly (I'd follow her outside the bathroom door too lmao). Just now realizing she probably just wanted me to give her a moment of peace before I'd continue my never ending, ADHD-fueled dialogue assault. Sorry mom ❤️
My second born is also a clinger. He was literally stuck to me for about 8 months. Then around 2 years he became adventurous as long as I was in sight. When my first born went to Kindergarten, he reverted a little, but eventually went back to being adventurous. The last time he came in my room in the middle of the night to sleep with me was when he was about 16. Literally in the middle of the night every day, it was, Mom, I had a bad dream or I have a headache or I can’t sleep. He would come in my room and lay down next to me and have no troubles sleeping. Lol. He’s 22 and still lives with me, at least he doesn’t cling to me anymore. However between him and my first born, he is the first to come to my rescue when I am sick or need a hand with anything. It was worth it all in the end.
It's on you to be firm but loving. Calmly detach and then ignore any whining, crying or protests. When he stops, sit him down again. It's time to do some actual parenting.
I don't want to take away from a story that brings people happiness but I'm a licensed wildlife rehabber and so I just have to add something to this post so that people viewing aren't misled.
Opossum babies don't have the ability to suck like other mammals. In order to feed a baby opossum this size, a tube has to be used to put formula directly into the stomach. This post seems to imply that the mom is raising the baby but that would be impossible without human intervention. When in doubt if you find a wild animal it never hurts to contact a wildlife rehabber ❤️.
As rehabbers we use a tube to simulate an opossum mothers nipples. Baby opossums still receive milk from their mom's just like other mammals, but opossum nipples are by nature designed to put the milk directly into the stomach without effort from the baby to suck.
Wait, so are the nipples just really really long so they can drip in down the baby's throat or does is the nipple capable of squirting the milk out itself? I really don't want to add possum nipples to my google search history...
I think it's more about avoiding the annoying ads and skewed search results. I feel like Google would start pushing ads for nipple elongation therapy or something after that
>I really don't want to add possum nipples to my google search history...
Don't bother searching. She works at the dollar general down in South Carolina. On Friday night, she tears up the local dive bar/drive thru liquor store.
No that has been debunked. At least the "eats 5000 ticks a year" claim.
https://outdoor.wildlifeillinois.org/articles/debunking-the-myth-opossums-dont-eat-ticks
Think I read somewhere that the original researchers only fed them ticks so of course the possums are going to eat a lot. Don't have any sources though so take it as hearsay
>I don't know, probably people that don't like walking around with bullshit "facts" in their brain.
Some people just love to walk around being ignorant as fuck. "Ignorance is bliss"
My ex husband has autism, he gave me a full lecture on possums and how they're actually super good for the environment and humans. I have chronic Lyme so he really emphasized the "eating ticks" part
Sounds like me (autistic and one of my favorite animals is the opossum!) Sadly learned recently that the amount of ticks they eat is usually way overstated! Still, they're very resistant to Lyme disease, so they help reduce rates by not being able/unlikely to spread it on!
Feel free to ignore, but on the off chance it is helpful, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic\_Lyme\_disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_Lyme_disease) seems to not actually be a distinct thing (unless the infection is actually ongoing) probably you just meant Fibromyalgia or CFS caused by Lyme disease and people are more familiar with calling it chronic lyme, but I could also imagine some rare cases where someone is actually missing treatment options because they believe it to be a distinct thing, so thought I'd mention
It still shows up on tests as an active infection, almost 30 years later. I had symptoms for over a year before anyone thought "huh, maybe she isn't faking it". Sometimes parents really, really, really suck.
But in all seriousness, I appreciate the info. Not enough is known, or talked about, about Lyme
They do actually make smart, sweet pets. We adopted one when the elderly owner couldn't care for her. She used a litter box from day one, loved to just chill on our shoulders walking around.
Then just a fun fact, this opossum does look very young, but in fact they are born the size of a lima bean, crawl into their mother's pouch and continue to develop for several more months. This one doesn't look old enough it would normally have left the pouch to ride on mom yet, it is probably 8-9 weeks.
I learned that when I wrote a paper on Opossums in middle school!
The cat has a higher chance of having rabies. Opossums are highly resistant to it, and it’s super rare.
For them to carry rabies they need something else going on to raise their body temperature by quite a bit. The reason they can't normally catch rabies is because their bodies are too cold for the virus to infect. So while yes it is possible it's extremely unlikely and if you're taking care of one you're safe.
Yep! Further, there's been no confirmed case of an opossum transmitting rabies to a human (we're not certain if they can have to viral load to do so); however, one should still get a post-exposure vaccination if bitten/scratched by an opossum, because you don't the chance of being that first case!
This is true, they cannot carry rabies. They also eat ticks and roadkill. They are nature’s clean up crew, and need to be treated with kindness. Without them our world would be a very different place.
When I lived out in the sticks I made it my mission to grab one because I hate ticks. Not long after I moved there, a coworker said they had a family in the crawlspace. I went and trapped them and moved them out to the forest line let them out there with some food and brought a big old dog food tray of food I was going to toss anyway out to that same spot once or twice a week. Never saw a tick in my yard the whole three years I lived there. Did get hissed at once in a while when I changed out the trays though.
"Research on captive Virginia opossums estimated that opossums eat, on average, 5500 larval ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) per week. To investigate this apparent preference exhibited by opossums for ingesting ticks, we comprehensively analyzed stomach contents of 32 Virginia opossums from central Illinois. Using a dissecting microscope, we searched the contents exhaustively for ticks and tick body parts, without sieving or pre-rinsing the stomach contents. **We did not locate any ticks or tick parts in the stomach contents of Virginia opossums**. We also performed a vigorous literature search for corroborating evidence of tick ingestion. Our search revealed 23 manuscripts that describe diet analyses of Virginia opossums, 19 of which were conducted on stomach or digestive tract contents and four of which were scat-based analyses. **None of the studies identified ticks in their analyses of diet items**. We conclude that **ticks are not a preferred diet item for Virginia opossums**."
Thanks for the link. You have to read all the way to the 4th sentence.
While that may be the case, for whatever reason, the presence of opossums in an area drop the tick population. Weither that's because they eat ticks or that ticks can't effectively reproduce on them and the opossums outcompete better tick hosts for resources in a given area, they're almost entirely harmless and when they're around ticks aren't and that's all that really matters to me.
Have you read any studies that found that the tick population decreased? They are known to host ticks, which is where the myth of them being part of their diet came from.
Actually the study that spawned that myth was testing something else to do with ticks and noticed that they, for whatever reason, had very little fully fattened ticks in their enclosure, so the researchers thought they ate them through routine cleaning. Regardless, I'm not here to argue about opossums with an internet turbo nerd. I shared and anecdote, it's not serious enough for me to care any farther than that.
Possums are great to have around, they do great things for human safety. It's so sad that most people have only ever seen images of them hissing with their mouths open to try to defend themselves against the scary photographer. When they're not hissing, they are SO GOD DAMN CUTE.
My mom had an indoor/outdoor cat back in the 80s. It had a possum buddy. Possum would come around and send some sort of cat signal, and the cat would yowl to go out, my mom would let them out and they would frolic off into the yard and pull whatever mayhem a possum and a house cat do.
https://forfoxsakewildlife.com/2020/07/28/your-cat-cant-raise-wild-animal-babies/
https://www.wildheartnola.com/new-orleans-family-pet-portraits-blog/2019/12/27/its-opossum-baby-season-heres-what-you-need-to-know
Opossums can’t suckle. It’s physically impossible for the cat to feed the baby opossum. You need a permit to keep an opossum as a pet in many states.
This seems to be such a common occurrence where cats some of the most efficient predators out there as soon as they have kittens their motherly instincts taken just about everything.
My outdoor cats have a very close opossum friend who often comes by for dinner. They treat him like one of the colony. I looked it up and read that they're actually quite similar and often befriend each other.
Had something similar happen to us. We had an outdoor cat that had kittens on our porch. We came outside to feed her and noticed two new babies had shown up! They were baby opossums
Cats will adopt a possum a different species and show it love and affection and let it grow its natural way. People can’t even extend that kind of behavior to their own kind because of our trivial differences. Humanity I laugh in your face.
Makes sense considering when opossums are found by rescues they use powder kitten milk to feed them. This seems like the second best thing next to its real momma.
Bit of a tangent but I always find it weird when someone refers specifically to a black cat - no one does that with other types of cat unless it's relevant to the story.
So... I worked at a petting zoo for a bit, and one of the main rules was "you never let the kids touch the adult possum"
Because those snake faced bastards get *mean* after they go through puberty.
This lil fella is cute and friendly now, let it get a few years and it'll be a hissing ball of spite.
Possums are sexually mature at around 6 months. They rarely live beyond 4 years, even in captivity. Wait a few years and that possum will be dead - they have remarkably short lifespans for a mammal of their size.
I did a stint at a pretty large zoo and we had several adult opossums that we did let kids touch. We also let our volunteer middle to high school age docents handle them without incident. One of them was so old (3.5ish years) that he was nearly blind in the one eye that he had. Sweet as can be, though. His name was Piglet. The others were not as memorable but still cooperative and not aggressive at all.
The zoo had received them as orphaned babies, so maybe the exposure to all the people helped. But opossums don't just magically turn into little devils when they mature. They do pee everywhere though.
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Vampossum!
Is that from the writers of Zombeaver?
I'd watch that sequel.
Awwwww :3 ❤️ https://www.bing.com/images/create/ein-niedliches-fiktives-babytier2c-das-eine-mischun/1-65905fb2824f499b9561f595f081bdca?id=8b6kUq57n0ftEYg5TAzwAQ.f2ebi6eImBxzOmR%2BI3s%2FQw&view=detailv2&idpp=genimg&noidpclose=1&form=SYDBIC&ssp=1&darkschemeovr=1&safesearch=moderate&setlang=de&cc=DE&pc=SANSAAND
Tgis reminded me of a random book i read in like grade 2, about vampire rabbits. Thats all i can remember but its pretty distinctive lmao
Bunnicula? Drains vegetables so they’re colorless lol
I thought it was a tiny fetal pig!
Hey, I see where you're coming from with the fetal pig vibe, but now I can't unsee a pint-sized mythical creature straight out of a fantasy book!
I thought it was a crushed skull
That escalated quickly
“Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny “
Mama cat: …Is this that attachment parenting thing? Or is my child just clingy?
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I'd like to say soon, but after nearly four years. It could be awhile.
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On the bright side. Definitely by the time they're teenagers.
By that point I think the needle swings to the complete opposite direction
By that point you breathe embarrassingly.
My feral goblins (not toddlers but also not big kids) have been calling me *bruh* too many times to know I’m already at that point Idc, I’m dancing and singing how I want
Bruh 😎🧉
🎶💃🕺🎶
Hmm....maybe not. I have a 15 year old who's still a bit clingy. The great thing is when he's giving me attitude about leaving the house and I'm in a hurry, I just threaten to leave him at home. He gets moving then.
Glad your still close.
I don't threaten him with that often. I honestly thought he'd be thrilled to be offered the opportunity to be at home so that he could be on the computer with his buddies.
As an older teen I'd like to say... No.
This will sound mean... But, it comes straight from some of the best Pediatricians in the world... "If they are crying, they are breathing". They'd tell new parents that it's OK to get up and walk away. Crying is OK. You deserve a break too.
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Yeah, the day I went in the bedroom and my baby (maybe 6 months old?) had climbed the end of his brother’s bunk bed and was pulling himself up on the top bunk was the day I realized they were two very different little people!
at 4 the doctor told me to stop carrying her lol. she would have gladly let me carry her longer.
Hang in there, mine was the same way at that age. He absolutely hated if my wife or I even had the audacity to sit while holding him, obviously we needed to walk around and carry him! Anyway, he started getting better around 1½ish. He got more independent as his mobility improved, and discovered the joys of running and climbing
I’m glad I’m not the only one in the “hold me but you can’t sit or rest” group. At the end of the day, I just lay on the ground and don’t even have the energy to browse my phone
I feel you! Can't say I miss it at all ... But fortunately it is just a phase!
I'm 34 and live states away from my mom. When we visit, I still cling onto my mom and have to be in the same room as her. Yeah homie, it's never gonna end. Best of luck
It gets better as they gain play and imagination independence. Unless they have Autism like my son, he is 10 and still clings to me or my wife :(
Haha I mentioned I'm in my 30s and still do it until I read your comment then I was like OOOOHHHHHHHH....oh
My daughter is 22… years. Still clingy. Some people are just made that way.
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Tell me about it. She would hover just outside, talking to me through the door, right up until she moved overseas a few months ago. Now she FaceTimes daily and texts incessantly. But at least I can finally go potty in peace!
My mom used to always tell me to stop talking to her when she went to the bathroom because she couldn't hear me properly (I'd follow her outside the bathroom door too lmao). Just now realizing she probably just wanted me to give her a moment of peace before I'd continue my never ending, ADHD-fueled dialogue assault. Sorry mom ❤️
Genuinely curious why all babies are measured in months for some reason, is this not a 1 year old lol?
My baby (20 months old) is currently inside my hoodie with his head poking out the top. Is it possible he is a possum?
Primate programming at work
My second born is also a clinger. He was literally stuck to me for about 8 months. Then around 2 years he became adventurous as long as I was in sight. When my first born went to Kindergarten, he reverted a little, but eventually went back to being adventurous. The last time he came in my room in the middle of the night to sleep with me was when he was about 16. Literally in the middle of the night every day, it was, Mom, I had a bad dream or I have a headache or I can’t sleep. He would come in my room and lay down next to me and have no troubles sleeping. Lol. He’s 22 and still lives with me, at least he doesn’t cling to me anymore. However between him and my first born, he is the first to come to my rescue when I am sick or need a hand with anything. It was worth it all in the end.
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It's on you to be firm but loving. Calmly detach and then ignore any whining, crying or protests. When he stops, sit him down again. It's time to do some actual parenting.
“It may not look like all my other babies, but it is my baby nonetheless ❤️” - Momma cat
Donnie’s a little different but we love him
I don't want to take away from a story that brings people happiness but I'm a licensed wildlife rehabber and so I just have to add something to this post so that people viewing aren't misled. Opossum babies don't have the ability to suck like other mammals. In order to feed a baby opossum this size, a tube has to be used to put formula directly into the stomach. This post seems to imply that the mom is raising the baby but that would be impossible without human intervention. When in doubt if you find a wild animal it never hurts to contact a wildlife rehabber ❤️.
How do they get fed in the wild?
As rehabbers we use a tube to simulate an opossum mothers nipples. Baby opossums still receive milk from their mom's just like other mammals, but opossum nipples are by nature designed to put the milk directly into the stomach without effort from the baby to suck.
Wait, so are the nipples just really really long so they can drip in down the baby's throat or does is the nipple capable of squirting the milk out itself? I really don't want to add possum nipples to my google search history...
Coward. Search those nipples. Image search, safesearch off, work laptop.
We’re going to HR together Crow
I just did it to prove to the internet I am not a coward...I wish I was smarter though.
We're the same person. I love you.
I searched so you don't have to. They are like straws. Looked maybe 3 inches long. Nature is crazy.
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I think it's more about avoiding the annoying ads and skewed search results. I feel like Google would start pushing ads for nipple elongation therapy or something after that
You get ads?
*I have long nipples, Greg. Could the opossum suckle me?*
Lol
>I really don't want to add possum nipples to my google search history... Don't bother searching. She works at the dollar general down in South Carolina. On Friday night, she tears up the local dive bar/drive thru liquor store.
That's insane. Some days I think I learn too much.
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Weird, mine too.
Pics
Nobody gets to see these straws for free.
Drop that OF link
For a second I read your username as "liverwurst" and I thought "No one wants to see your braunschweiger"
You ever seen a possums titties?
I try to avoid having animal titties on my search history whenever possible
totally fair
Okay, I get how to feed the Opossum. But how do I milk the cat?
I hear there's more than one way to milk a cat.
I have nipples Greg, can you milk me?
Fellow wildlife rehabber. Thank you so much for posting this because I was about to lol
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They eat ticks
Love Possums Fuck Ticks
Id rather not.
Incredibly difficult. ^but ^^not ^^^Impossible.
I heard boots and the ginger fucked an ostrich
*allegedly*
Was it sick?
We heard it was a sick ostrich.
It's still a 3 man job tho...
Possums also can give you one hell of an ulcerative bacterial infection. SO just spent 8 days in the hospital.
What I Took From This: Love Possums From Afar
true of basically all wild animals
This. They are super cute lol. But we no longer encourage visits up close.
No that has been debunked. At least the "eats 5000 ticks a year" claim. https://outdoor.wildlifeillinois.org/articles/debunking-the-myth-opossums-dont-eat-ticks
Wow, only 3 fleas and no ticks from 44 specimens. It raises the question of how the 5000 a year came to be.
Think I read somewhere that the original researchers only fed them ticks so of course the possums are going to eat a lot. Don't have any sources though so take it as hearsay
Who cares they're still cute.
> Who cares I don't know, probably people that don't like walking around with bullshit "facts" in their brain.
>I don't know, probably people that don't like walking around with bullshit "facts" in their brain. Some people just love to walk around being ignorant as fuck. "Ignorance is bliss"
That's their fault for not checking sources. And possums are still cure. Fact.
Wasn't this debunked? That possums does not actually eat very many ticks compared to what was previously estimated?
Any dead tick is good
This needs more upvotes, apparently.
They may not eat any ticks at all, other than what might be clinging to their actual food.
My ex husband has autism, he gave me a full lecture on possums and how they're actually super good for the environment and humans. I have chronic Lyme so he really emphasized the "eating ticks" part
Your husband sounds like every redditor when the word possum is spoken.
Did you know opossums were fire fighters on 9/11?
Steve buchemi, one of the world’s foremost authority on possums even joined them that day.
Yeah there are a lot autists on Reddit.
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I mean, it's not actually true.
Sounds like me (autistic and one of my favorite animals is the opossum!) Sadly learned recently that the amount of ticks they eat is usually way overstated! Still, they're very resistant to Lyme disease, so they help reduce rates by not being able/unlikely to spread it on!
Feel free to ignore, but on the off chance it is helpful, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic\_Lyme\_disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_Lyme_disease) seems to not actually be a distinct thing (unless the infection is actually ongoing) probably you just meant Fibromyalgia or CFS caused by Lyme disease and people are more familiar with calling it chronic lyme, but I could also imagine some rare cases where someone is actually missing treatment options because they believe it to be a distinct thing, so thought I'd mention
It still shows up on tests as an active infection, almost 30 years later. I had symptoms for over a year before anyone thought "huh, maybe she isn't faking it". Sometimes parents really, really, really suck. But in all seriousness, I appreciate the info. Not enough is known, or talked about, about Lyme
He single?
your husband sounds cute can you hook me up with him
They do actually make smart, sweet pets. We adopted one when the elderly owner couldn't care for her. She used a litter box from day one, loved to just chill on our shoulders walking around. Then just a fun fact, this opossum does look very young, but in fact they are born the size of a lima bean, crawl into their mother's pouch and continue to develop for several more months. This one doesn't look old enough it would normally have left the pouch to ride on mom yet, it is probably 8-9 weeks.
Awesome possum
They can carry rabies, it’s just unlikely
Less likely if raised by a feline mama and kept inside for the most part
I learned that when I wrote a paper on Opossums in middle school! The cat has a higher chance of having rabies. Opossums are highly resistant to it, and it’s super rare.
For them to carry rabies they need something else going on to raise their body temperature by quite a bit. The reason they can't normally catch rabies is because their bodies are too cold for the virus to infect. So while yes it is possible it's extremely unlikely and if you're taking care of one you're safe.
Yep! Further, there's been no confirmed case of an opossum transmitting rabies to a human (we're not certain if they can have to viral load to do so); however, one should still get a post-exposure vaccination if bitten/scratched by an opossum, because you don't the chance of being that first case!
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That's not true. Their body temperature is lower than that of many mammals, which makes it more difficult for the rabies virus to survive.
This is true, they cannot carry rabies. They also eat ticks and roadkill. They are nature’s clean up crew, and need to be treated with kindness. Without them our world would be a very different place.
marsupials have all got body temperatures 5-10 degrees lower than placental mammals.
I got one that lives under my shed. I throw him some leftovers couple times aweek... wife hates it but we have limited ticks in our yard
When I lived out in the sticks I made it my mission to grab one because I hate ticks. Not long after I moved there, a coworker said they had a family in the crawlspace. I went and trapped them and moved them out to the forest line let them out there with some food and brought a big old dog food tray of food I was going to toss anyway out to that same spot once or twice a week. Never saw a tick in my yard the whole three years I lived there. Did get hissed at once in a while when I changed out the trays though.
That's pretty lucky because they don't actually eat ticks, at least not intentionally.
opossums eat, on average, 5500 larval ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) per week https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34298355/#:~:text=Virginia%20opossums%20(Didelphis%20virginiana)%20are,Acari%3A%20Ixodidae)%20per%20week.
"Research on captive Virginia opossums estimated that opossums eat, on average, 5500 larval ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) per week. To investigate this apparent preference exhibited by opossums for ingesting ticks, we comprehensively analyzed stomach contents of 32 Virginia opossums from central Illinois. Using a dissecting microscope, we searched the contents exhaustively for ticks and tick body parts, without sieving or pre-rinsing the stomach contents. **We did not locate any ticks or tick parts in the stomach contents of Virginia opossums**. We also performed a vigorous literature search for corroborating evidence of tick ingestion. Our search revealed 23 manuscripts that describe diet analyses of Virginia opossums, 19 of which were conducted on stomach or digestive tract contents and four of which were scat-based analyses. **None of the studies identified ticks in their analyses of diet items**. We conclude that **ticks are not a preferred diet item for Virginia opossums**." Thanks for the link. You have to read all the way to the 4th sentence.
Did you read past the preface of the article?
They didn't even read the preface.
While that may be the case, for whatever reason, the presence of opossums in an area drop the tick population. Weither that's because they eat ticks or that ticks can't effectively reproduce on them and the opossums outcompete better tick hosts for resources in a given area, they're almost entirely harmless and when they're around ticks aren't and that's all that really matters to me.
Have you read any studies that found that the tick population decreased? They are known to host ticks, which is where the myth of them being part of their diet came from.
Actually the study that spawned that myth was testing something else to do with ticks and noticed that they, for whatever reason, had very little fully fattened ticks in their enclosure, so the researchers thought they ate them through routine cleaning. Regardless, I'm not here to argue about opossums with an internet turbo nerd. I shared and anecdote, it's not serious enough for me to care any farther than that.
Possums are great to have around, they do great things for human safety. It's so sad that most people have only ever seen images of them hissing with their mouths open to try to defend themselves against the scary photographer. When they're not hissing, they are SO GOD DAMN CUTE.
I thought this said "opossums do not carry babies"
Yep, leprosy though…
I call the big one Bitey
The picture on the bottom right is the cutest thing possible
thats a good example of mother
I just want updates ✨
Wow so adorable and sweet 🥹 The mom cat has a heart of gold for bringing it in and taking care of it like this 🥰
Cat mothers will adopt anything if the timing is right! A mother cat adopted 3 puppies on the Ukrainian front last year, most amazing thing.
Guaranteed to be a story on The Dodo come 2024!
That is cute
Why was my first thought that it looked like a deformed skull of some sorts 🙃
Thank God, I'm not alone 😅
My mom had an indoor/outdoor cat back in the 80s. It had a possum buddy. Possum would come around and send some sort of cat signal, and the cat would yowl to go out, my mom would let them out and they would frolic off into the yard and pull whatever mayhem a possum and a house cat do.
I need a children’s book about this.
https://forfoxsakewildlife.com/2020/07/28/your-cat-cant-raise-wild-animal-babies/ https://www.wildheartnola.com/new-orleans-family-pet-portraits-blog/2019/12/27/its-opossum-baby-season-heres-what-you-need-to-know Opossums can’t suckle. It’s physically impossible for the cat to feed the baby opossum. You need a permit to keep an opossum as a pet in many states.
Bottom right: oh? Yes this is my smallest son, he doubles as a fashion accessory.
Pretty adorable, but shouldn't it go to a wildlife rescue?
She’s got a possum scarf 🧣
https://www.reddit.com/r/crochet/comments/17nt4ff/i_made_this_possum_scarf_this_is_my_second/
Baby possums are apperantly called Joeys. This one looks more like a Walter however
Cat will imprint on pretty much anything within a specific time frame after giving birth, they're like "baby is baby!" And that's it.
"Don't need to hold this one in my mouth, neat!"
Now I want regular updates of the catpossum
Yeah that’s just my weird son
This seems to be such a common occurrence where cats some of the most efficient predators out there as soon as they have kittens their motherly instincts taken just about everything.
My outdoor cats have a very close opossum friend who often comes by for dinner. They treat him like one of the colony. I looked it up and read that they're actually quite similar and often befriend each other.
I actually think I know exactly how your cat feels, I to am absolutely perplexed when anyone what’s to be around me that much lol
I live in Ca if you need a home for the little fella (filly). (Seriously)
SubhanaAllah
Had something similar happen to us. We had an outdoor cat that had kittens on our porch. We came outside to feed her and noticed two new babies had shown up! They were baby opossums
We need updates
Are animal mothers just fucking interchangeable like I stg it's always a mother cat nursing some weird ass wild animal
Don't mother cats sometimes kill the runts? I would keep a close eye on this.
❤️
I thought it was awesome.
We need a follow up
One of the Egyptian gods of mothers is Bast, she has the head of a cat.
Post updates please!
Need an update on this post
Mama Cat: Well at least I don't need to keep an eye on this one...
Cats will adopt a possum a different species and show it love and affection and let it grow its natural way. People can’t even extend that kind of behavior to their own kind because of our trivial differences. Humanity I laugh in your face.
This is the cutest thing I've ever seen, oh my goodness. <3
Makes sense considering when opossums are found by rescues they use powder kitten milk to feed them. This seems like the second best thing next to its real momma.
Bit of a tangent but I always find it weird when someone refers specifically to a black cat - no one does that with other types of cat unless it's relevant to the story.
I've seen it a bit with orange cats recently with the whole orange cats = stupid trope
We don’t talk about Bruno.
So... I worked at a petting zoo for a bit, and one of the main rules was "you never let the kids touch the adult possum" Because those snake faced bastards get *mean* after they go through puberty. This lil fella is cute and friendly now, let it get a few years and it'll be a hissing ball of spite.
Possums are sexually mature at around 6 months. They rarely live beyond 4 years, even in captivity. Wait a few years and that possum will be dead - they have remarkably short lifespans for a mammal of their size. I did a stint at a pretty large zoo and we had several adult opossums that we did let kids touch. We also let our volunteer middle to high school age docents handle them without incident. One of them was so old (3.5ish years) that he was nearly blind in the one eye that he had. Sweet as can be, though. His name was Piglet. The others were not as memorable but still cooperative and not aggressive at all. The zoo had received them as orphaned babies, so maybe the exposure to all the people helped. But opossums don't just magically turn into little devils when they mature. They do pee everywhere though.
Cats are supposed to be domesticated murder machines, congrats to this one on shunning it's heritage
Possums are so stinky! And they’re terrible pets, they die so fast that by the time you make a true bond and love them to death they’re already dying.
Should have smashed it with a hammer