Baby Opossums Rescued

Last Saturday night we had a big party in our home. It was the birthday of Egidijus, Luka's boyfriend, and so we had a lot of Lithuanians. We had ten guests who wanted to stay and play poker and make a lot of noise and then sleep in our home.

Zosia had to work in her hotel on Sunday, so Zosia and I decided that we would go to her hotel and sleep there. The hotel has special, low rates for employees.

We left our home at about 1:30 a.m. and were driving to the hotel. As we were driving on the road that merges onto a highway, we saw that a previous car had hit an opossum that now was lying in the middle of the road. As we slowed down to drive around the opossum, we saw that there were a lot of baby opossums lying on the road next to the large opossum. I parked the car at the edge of the road, and we got out to look closer. I stood to block the road so that no coming cars would hit the opossums.

It was a horrible sight. The large opossum -- the size of a very large, fat cat -- obviously was a mother and there were about six baby opossums lying next to her stomach. The mother was unconscious, but there was no obvious trauma or blood on or around her body. It looked like she had given birth to a litter right in the middle of the road. The six babies next to her stomach all looked dead.

There were two babies scattered a couple of feet away from her, and they were alive and struggling to move. Zosia picked those two up and laid them in the grass next to the road.

I then picked up the mother by her tail and laid her in the grass, about a foot away from the two live babies. I left the rest of the babies in the road. I wondered whether the mother was playing dead or was really dead, but I figured that the six babies must really be dead.

Zosia and I then got into our car and continued to drive toward her hotel. As we were driving, we discussed the horrible situation and then decided to go back and see whether we might save the two babies. We drove back and found the scene as we had left it.

It looked as if one of the live babies was crawling through the grass toward the mother. The other baby seemed to be unable to stand up on its feet and seemed to be moaning in pain.

I found an empty paper cup, with a lid, in the grass. I used the lid to shove the crawling baby into the cup and then put the lid onto the cup. To my surprise, the baby in the cup pushed the lid off and started to crawl out. The baby was much stronger than I expected, and I had to put the lid on tight. We got into the car, and I gave the cup to Zosia. She tried to peek into the cup, and again the baby bolted up to the top of the cup and almost leaped out.

We drove home, where the party was still going strong. We took the cup down to our garage, to our basement, and poured the baby possum into a plastic laundry tub. We spread out some newspaper and poured some milk into a saucer and coaxed the baby to drink the milk. The baby just raced around the bottom of the tub and didn't drink the milk. Some of the partyers came down to look, and we told our story.

We left the baby in the tub and got back into our car and drove to the hotel. On our way, we again passed the same location, and I saw the mother still lying motionless in the same place.

Zosia's hotel did not have a free room, so we tried to call all the other Marriott hotels in the area, and none of them had a room available at the employee rate. Then we went to another hotel, which also was full, and then we were able to get a free room in a third hotel. By the time we finally got into bed, it was about 3 a.m.

We woke up at about 8 a.m. and checked out of the hotel and drove back home. (Zosia was supposed to be begin working at the hotel at 10 a.m.) While Zosia fussed with the baby opossum, I drove to our grocery store and bought an eye-dropper. We then fed the baby some milk.

Zosia dressed for work, and we got into our car and drove again toward Zosia's hotel. Again we passed the same spot, and I saw the large opossum lying motionless in the grass. The six babies in the middle of the road had been crushed by passing cars. I parked our car and went to look at the other baby that I had left the previous night. I expected that this baby would be dead by now, but I saw that it was still struggling to stand and still seemed to be moaning, just as it had been doing before.

I decided that I had to try to save this baby too. I picked it up out of the grass and brought it to Zosia. We then drove to the hotel. She ran in and brough out a glass of water and a spoon and fed the baby a little bit of water. She then went back into the hotel, and I drove the baby possum home. I just put the baby into the passenger seat and then was surprised to see then baby energetically crawl up the seat back. I had to push the baby back down several times as I drove back home.

I put the second baby into the tub with the first and fed it some milk with the eye-dropper. Some of the Lithuanian guests who were awake came down to look and to hear my further story.

Anyway, both opossums turned out to be uninjured and healthy. They learned to drink and eat from the eye-dropper. One is a boy and the other is a girl. We kept them for a few days and had a lot of fun playing with them. They apparently were just learning to walk, and they were super cute as they walked around like babies. We adored them.

Before we fell too much in love with them, however, we turned them over to a couple of local ladies who have a lot of experience raising baby opossums and then releasing them into the wild. We will go to visit our opossums in a few weeks to see how they have grown. At about the beginning of September, the two ladies will release them into a place in the woods where there are a lot of berry bushes, and they should be able to survive.

Below are some pictures of our two possums and an Internet picture of a mother carrying a bunch of baby possums. Opossums are like kangaroos. The mother carries them in a pouch for about four weeks and then carries them on her back while they are growing.

Apparently the mother was carrying eight babies on her back and was trying to cross the road when she was hit by a car. The two that survived apparently dropped off right before the collision or flew away safely at the moment of collision.