Opossum.

[redman2006]

Killed three tonight trying to kill my few remaining hens. So, anyone have a way to make these nasty, gabage eating, chicken killing varmints palatable?

I subscribe to the "if you kill it, you eat it" theory generally, but coyotes, coons and possums turn my stomach. At least the groundhogs did not have the nasty habits these guys do, and they did not taste half bad either.

[kickstand]

Only thing I can think of is to put the meat in a skillet and slow cook with bean sprouts and tofu. When the hippies smell the sprouts and tofu, they'll come towards the smell, and you can then whack the hippies with the skillet and eat them.

[olfart]

Around here the recipe involves boiling first to remove most of the grease, then baking or barbecuing. Considering what they eat, I'm not sure even that would make the palatable.

[0utlaw]

Strangely enough from a discussion on another forum...

Skin the possum, scrape what fat you can off, soak in saltwater for a day, par boil meat, scrape the remaining fat off, cut into pieces and brown meat....makes a fine sofky .

.......or BBQ the pieces with a North Carolina sauce......yea man!

[0utlaw]

As for us here at the ranch, possums and coons become dog food

[W.Lynn]

They've been taking chickens, why not recycle them into chicken feed? Chop coarsely, pepper it well with black pepper, maybe cook lightly (are chickens iffy about food?) and set it out in a cake pan or something. Freeze batches in Ziploc freezer bags if you don't have enough chickens to use the 'possums up all at once.

[redman2006]

Nope, they are not. They eat each other given a chance.

[0utlaw]

Ours wouldn't eat the rat snake till I chopped it up, I was hoping they would develop a taste for it the "On the hoof" so to speak and quit letting them eat eggs.

[redman2006]

I watched mine tear up a couple of garter snakes. One would about have it down and the other would grab the tail and run with it. Pulled it right out of the other's throat. The fought over those snakes for a while. On the other hand, I had an idiot hen that let a huge egg eating rat snake coil up under her to stay warm. I had no idea it was there until I reached under to grab the eggs. Scared the hell out of me. Came up and hit the rafter with my head and knocked myself silly for a while. I will not reach under a chicken for eggs after that.

[W.Lynn]

Ok, we need to find sites with web cams in the chicken yards and coops, there HAS to be video out there of that happening to people!

[olfart]

It happened to my wife about 35 years ago. I've still got the .410 holes in the old chicken house as evidence. To this day, even with the new chicken tractor, she will not reach under a hen for an egg.

[Logos]

Chicken food or dog food sounded like the best ideas.

I live trapped a couple of them in my back yard and released both out in the country. One really smelled bad. I had a tarp down in the back of the car and had to wash it and hang it outside for a while.

Hoping for no more visitors.

[olfart]

As a matter of fact, I just sent one to his heavenly reward tonight. He's been living in our garage under a bunch of stuff I can't even get to to move it, and he was dumb enough to come out and sit in the front yard eating bird seed. He'll be food for the rest of his family.

[redman2006]

We have horses, so I am less tolerant of these nasty beasts than some might be. I relocated a couple more, to heaven.

[0utlaw]

What effect do they have on horses Red?