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If You Find a Half-Eaten Opossum Carcass On Your Lawn, Is Your First Thought....


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If it is a fresh kill, we would be investigating for animal tracks, teeth and claw marks, etc. and doing our own home-grown CSI to determine the nature of the crime and it's perpetrator.

 

If it is a rank find, next thought is, "Which one of my boys should I order to bury it?" The follow up thought then being, "Which one of those boys complained about schoolwork the most yesterday? HMMMMMM"

 

We love skeletons and dissecting here :D so long as the stench isn't too bad :tongue_smilie:.

 

Faith

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If it is a fresh kill, we would be investigating for animal tracks, teeth and claw marks, etc. and doing our own home-grown CSI to determine the nature of the crime and it's perpetrator.

 

If it is a rank find, next thought is, "Which one of my boys should I order to bury it?" The follow up thought then being, "Which one of those boys complained about schoolwork the most yesterday? HMMMMMM"

 

We love skeletons and dissecting here :D so long as the stench isn't too bad :tongue_smilie:.

 

Faith

 

I like the way you think :D

 

Bill

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My first thought was the same as Jen in PA's!

 

But while hiking recently, we came across a rather new deer carcass which we all had to get a closer look at. Then talked about the life cycle, and why the flies were crawling all over it, and how things deteriorate and become new food for other creatures. Then the stench got to be a little too much.

 

So yeah, we pass for homeschoolers.

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If it is a fresh kill, we would be investigating for animal tracks, teeth and claw marks, etc. and doing our own home-grown CSI to determine the nature of the crime and it's perpetrator.

 

If it is a rank find, next thought is, "Which one of my boys should I order to bury it?" The follow up thought then being, "Which one of those boys complained about schoolwork the most yesterday? HMMMMMM"

 

We love skeletons and dissecting here :D so long as the stench isn't too bad :tongue_smilie:.

 

Faith

 

This.

 

However I am learning the hard way about the burying part... a few days ago I noticed a h*llacious stench around the back of the house. I finally realized that after dissecting a dead bullforg (it had a crayfish inside of it!) he merely tossed the remains in a ditch behind the house. Anyone know how long it takes a bullfrog to decompose? :D

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This.

 

However I am learning the hard way about the burying part... a few days ago I noticed a h*llacious stench around the back of the house. I finally realized that after dissecting a dead bullforg (it had a crayfish inside of it!) he merely tossed the remains in a ditch behind the house. Anyone know how long it takes a bullfrog to decompose? :D

 

Not nearly as long if you run it over with a lawn mower which disperses its carcass around the yard quite evenly. :ack2: Ask me how I know?

 

Faith

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Hate to admit it but, yes, I call the kids to come look over the parts. Did you find one in your yard?

 

A friend of mine is struggling financially and could not afford to buy a dissection kit for her high schooler. She gathered fresh road kill whenever she saw it and used it for dissection. She's amazing!

Denise

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My first thought be "Yeah, one less possum living under my house"

 

Second thought would be "Don't tell dh, or else we will be getting stories of how his Grandma would make possum pie, and getting that look he get's when he wants me to try cooking something his Grandma made."

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I would be looking for my cat. Who would undoubtedly be the guilty party. :glare: Then I would have to call the Department of Wildlife and check how often opossums carry rabies. Then I'd have to sit and wait for them to come and collect said carcass and have the rabies testing done....just to make sure.

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Other, because I wouldn't be the one to find it. DS would. I should have named him McGruff. He's the one who found our chicken who died of heatstroke a few weeks back, too, and saw bones sticking out of the ground at my grandmother's house and insisted on digging them up (squirrel, by the way). Oh, and at a birthday party in April he found a nest of dead baby birds and hauled it out of a tree to show all the 5- and 6-year-olds. Some of them may have been more than a little traumatized. Whoops.

 

I'm a little more in the EWWww camp when it comes to dead things, but I've learned to stifle it for the sake of my son's passion. I do draw the line at bringing decomposing or already-partially-eaten things into the house for "dissection" and storage. If it ain't mummified or at least fully dried, it ain't comin' in the house!

 

And yes, we have a whole box of Latex gloves on hand as well as a massive box of sanitizing wipes. I'm not a germophobe, but there IS a line.

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My first response would be "oh carp! Which shoebox of mine are the children going to steal this time? Next thought would be, what am going to say at THIS funeral (after awhile "it was a good _____ " just doesn't pass muster anymore.

 

On a side note, when I was a child (in Seguin Texas) a (an?) Opossum wandered into the garage and I saw it out of the corner of my eye. I thought it was the cat and reached down to pet it---then I saw the tail. Having been raised in Colo, I had never seen an (a) Opossum, so I ran into the house yelling that I had seen the BIGGEST RAT EVER. Never made that mistake again.

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"I wonder what killed it." Then I would check for tracks, scat, and bite marks.

 

And on your lawn is much better than the last place I found a half eaten opossum.

 

 

 

My dog had killed one if a very messy way and left it as a prize for me right beside the door. The porch light was out. The dog was barking like mad. I stepped out barefoot. It was warm.

 

 

:ack2:

Edited by Karen in CO
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LOL. I made my husband slam on the breaks and pull the car over just so we could go investigate some 'possum road kill.

 

I obviously voted for learning opportunity.

 

We went camping and my kids maneuvered a dead garter snake near an ant hole and made observations the entire time we were there. It was fun.

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My first thought would be "oh geez where's the dog?!" Because picking up half a possum would be bad enough, but wrestling it out my dog's mouth would be way worse.

 

Exactly my first thought - as this kind of thing happens regularly around here (except usually porcupines and deer - - and only when Dh is deployed... why is that?)

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Other. I'd think both simultaneously. Well, nearly, anyway. Maybe "Ewwww!" would win by a hair.

 

 

:iagree::lol:

 

My son would be fascinated immediately. DD1 would be horrified and feels sad for the possum. DD2 would briefly feel sorry for the possum, but would hop right over with ds to investigate.

 

Meanwhile, I'd be running over to our chickens to make sure they were okay.

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