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Opposums and Raccoons in the snow
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Posted by paulsiu (My Page) on Mon, Dec 14, 09 at 23:45
| It's been snowing for the past couple of days. Temperature drops to 11F with wind chill going to -20F. I notice that nothing was eating anything at night. I wonder if Raccoons and Opposums hide out when it's snowing?
Now that the snow is melting, I notice an opposum running around during the afternoon gobbling down rotting pumpkin and chewing on fake squirrel corn (that squirrels aparently do not like). My wife thinks the opposum is sick because it's walking around in the daylight, but I think it's just very hungry and want to get an early start. It was the biggest opposum I have ever seen. It's much bigger than the squirrel.
Paul
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Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Opposums and Raccoons in the snow
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| Both animals can go into a type of hibernation when it becomes really cold. They will forage when it is warm enough for them to move about. Possums in this area will forage at all times of the day. No one is likely to have coons or possums as large as they used to get because both are prey to dog and cat distemper but they do get as large as a medium size dog if they have good living conditions that allows them to grow old. I will check to see if I can find records on both but off the top of my head coons, 65 pounds, possums, 35. |
RE: Opposums and Raccoons in the snow
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| The raccoons in my area gets fairly big, but not as big as a med size dog. The two individual I have seen were somewhere between a small dog (terrier size) and a medium size dog (65-70 lbs) or so. They are serious round in shape. They look like giant balls with legs and a tail. I don't know if this is because they are storing a lot of fat for the winter or if they are just obese. Previous to moving here, I rarely see them and they were a lot smaller. The opossum I seen was a bit smaller than the 40 lbs pumpkin, so I am thinking it's probably more like 20 lbs or so (I am betting that it's a lot of fur). Most of the opossum I have seen were smaller and they only seemed to come out at night. |
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