THis is an opossum , right?

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I've killed so many possums around my house in the past several years. Also, in almost every way imaginable with the nearest object that I could grab sometimes (shovel, hammer, baseball bat). They are very tough to kill, but usually a couple thumps will do it.
A 7.62x39 HP will work very well, if handy at the moment. :evil:

Short joke for yah-

Why did the chicken cross the road?

To prove to the opossum that it could be done. :D
 
You now know why it is called playing possum, those things are tough to kill.
 
I hate to see any animal suffer and commend the OP for his action - if me I would have given it a pill through the ear.
that said opposums are edible but they are 'eaters of opportunity' so eat only those taken in the fall near a source of mast or an orchard/farm.
I have eaten them, it's neccesary to remove the glands in the leg-pits.
some years back I was camped at the southern end of the Smokys with a couple fellas, there was a huge stand of persimmon trees there, the ground was covered and my Lab caught a young possum one morning.
after killing and cleaning (scalding with boiling water and scraping) into the D.O. he went with onion, hot pepper, sweet taters and such.
2 hours roasting and a cake of cornbread and we had supper - there was hardly a scrap left for the dog.
not my wild game of choice and I would not eat one that had been around carrion - but you can live on 'em as the 'Croc' would say!
 
My opossum tales:

When we lived in the Bentonville Arkansas area, I went to let my greyhounds out one morning and there was one sitting on my deck rail eating out of my bird feeder. I shooed the dogs back away from the door and went out to shoo the opossum away. The darned thing reared up and hissed at me so Back-Fisted him about half-way across the yard! I gave the stupid critter a few minutes to get and then turned the dogs loose. Dogs 1, opossum 0. I let them in after they did their business and grabbed a shovel and made darned sure the critter was indeed dead (it was) and flung the carcass over the fence to the field behind us.

Tale two:

MANY years ago down South Louisiana, my dog "Manfred" caught a opossum and chewed on it pretty good. The ol opossum did what opossums do and played dead when the dog spit him out. The darned dog then goes over to inspect "his kill" and sticks his snout right in that opossums belly. :eek: That thing latched on to his head and proceeded to bit and scratch that poor old dog `bout half to death! :what: After that, whenever Manfred found a opossum, he made darned sure it was quite dead the 1st time around! :D
 
best/quickest way to kill them is to break there neck. take a piece of rebar or some other strong stick etc. place it over the back of there neck, step on both sides of the rebar and pull up on the tail, you will here there neck snap and no bullet holes/blood to ruin the fur :D
 
They also tend to let loose a nice turd in self defense. If you get on that has been eating the right stuff, it'll stink quite a bit.

I've also come to the conclusion that Jack Russel Terriers are about the best opossum fighting dogs around. My grandpa's can kill one, bigger than he is, in one quick snap to the head. :uhoh:
 
although my first instinct is

to wanna punch the guy that just wounded the opossum like that...
But then I think the oppossum likely went down with that shot and the person didn't bother to ensure death due to ignorance. Oppossums have a defense mechanism that causes them to go "comatose" when highly frightened and injured. We see this "pass out" feature in goats too sometimes. Really a CNS shot is the only way to be sure (and it looks as if someone assumed a CNS hit). make sure entry and exit line up indicating CNS being destroyed/ severed. NOT because they are hard to kill, but because it is otherwise hard to tell because they ALWAYS drop "dead". Poor thing, I think every animal shot should be afforded the decency of a quick end. This particular animal just usually is better assisted with a follow up shot.

+1 to the shot in the ear, seems to be the magic pill on everything I've had that particular shot with, from piggy to deer.
 
those things are tough to kill.
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Yeah, no kidding. Last week I saw one on my farm and decided I'd rather not have it in my tent with me, so I shot it. The bullet (from a .22 pistol) hit it on the left side of it's face, so I walked up and was suprised to see it still alive! So from about 5 feet, I shot it in the upper body.

30 minutes later I came back and it was sitting there, licking its hands:uhoh: At this point I almost start looking for my silver bullets and wooden stakes.... I shot it 5 more time and it was still breathing! So a few more later and he was dead but his tongue was still moving. I originally intended to skin and gut it and give it to an uncle who apparently like possum and coon, but he was little too shot up I would say. Needless to say, I won't be attempting this again or at least no with my .22 pistol

HB
 
Ive shot a raccoon before eating the bait corn while deer hunting. I used a Rem 700 in .25 06 100 gr Ballistic tip at 25 yds away. It was standing and once hit it blew off the other half of the body as if someone had a grenade inside it. The guts were nowhere in one piece. Those BT are quite deadly. BTW they were handload and I swear those BTs work well on .varmints and little critters.
 
Yes that is a possum (or opossum). I didn't know they were that tough to kill and I learned something from this thread.
There are possum and coons come up to my parents' house to eat the food they put out for "their" cat (along with some neighborhood cats). Possum are disgusting and evil-looking and I hate the sight of them. There's one coon I've seen on the porch about the sized of a Corgi dog, he's a big bubba coon. I wonder what a 200 gr. +P Gold Dot in .45 would do to him or the possum? I've been red-lighted on putting any bullet holes in any of the vermin that come around their house, though, with the exception of squirrels. The squirrels in my parents' neoghborhood come over and steal unripe fruit from the fruit trees. I don't have to put up with that junk around my house. Come to think of it, I haven't even seen a squirrel around my own neighborhood for the past three months.
 
Need to get a copy of Granny Clampet's possum stew recipe....

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Very interesting animals. Beneficial, too. They eat almost anything, including carrion. We leave em be. I you do kill one, though: Check her pouch for babies, she may be nursing a bunch.

Tried to save one this weekend that was mangled by a dog. At least she was warm and confortable when she died the next day.
 
Random tangent: Today looking for a doe my friend shot, I came upon an armadillo. It was windy and he had his head in the dirt of course, so he didn't see/hear me sneaking up on him. Got up to him and gave him a little boot upside the rear end - man it was comedy - he took off like a rocket! :evil:
 
Thats a possum alright, there is currently one living in/around my backyard. That tail leaves a very interesting track in the snow....
 
Ya know, I may be the only one, but I am quite flabbergasted trying to figure out if that poster is real (from a very VERY stupid person), or a joke. It's so borderline it's hard to tell, but I'd love to know if their really is someone who took that thing into their home and tried to find the owner, because that would just make my month if true. :D :D
 
Raccoons need various glands removed before you eat them.
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Also, completely false. Sounds like someone who has never eaten raccoons before. Raccoon meat is actually pretty good, just has more fat on them than most other animals. I've cooked dozens in the slow cooker with a cajun or teriyaki marinade. Really good, similar to a pulled pork sandwich when made this way.

I've eaten exactly three oppossums in my lifetime. It is in fact the worst meat I have ever tried to eat. One was eaten when camping while hunting for deer, it took 3 7.62x39 hp shots before it finally gave up. Blackened over a fire was probably the best way to eat it. I tried to cook the other 2 in a slow cooker and it was pretty bad. I decided if I wasn't starving or really hungry there was no point to eating them.
 
A couple of summers ago I do recall the neighbor girl sitting on her porch after having a few to many, and yelling here kitty kitty at a possum, it got a little closer to her, then I hear: thats an ugly kitty! :D
 
One of the little monsters froze to death in my dad's basement window well a few years ago. I took it out, carried it over toward the burn pile and it looked up at me! I about soiled myself. I had an experience similar to other posters. I think a large, healthy man would die six times from the number of .22 rounds I used to kill that one possum.
 
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