What to do if you find an orphaned baby opossum

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Unfortunately, this is a fairly common occurrence. A baby opossum may become orphaned if its mother dies or if it falls off the back of its mother during a foraging jaunt. Baby opossums usually emerge from their mother’s porch after the first few weeks of life to cling to her back while she looks for food. If one or more fall off on motion, the mother is not likely to go back for them.



If you come across one of such, you may either rescue the baby opossum and raise it can fend for itself in the wild, or hand it over to an animal rehabilitator, who will take care of it.

One thing though! Be sure that it is truly orphaned because many a young opossum, which has just become independent of its mother and is just finding its feet, has been confused with an orphaned opossum often times. A lost baby opossum will be less than 6 inches in length minus its tail length, any opossum bigger than this is unlikely to be a baby.

Next, if you are up to it, do a check and ascertain that the baby is not injured or sick. If it is, and you wish to keep it, call for a veterinary doctor to care for it. Otherwise, put a quick call through to the animal department or a rehabilitator.

How To Provide Care

- After making sure that your baby opossum is healthy, provide a home for it inside a box with some lining. This box should be suitable enough to provide warmth for the little creature to be safe.
- Provide some water for the baby to prevent dehydration. You may add some sugar or salt to the water and administer it using an oral cannula or eye dropper which will allow easy passage of - the water solution into its mouth.
- You should also feed the baby possum with suitable animal formula that will stimulate its normal growth. As it grows older, the diet will gradually change to fruits and small invertebrates like opossums eat in the wild.
- At about 15 weeks old, it will naturally grow wary of humans, aside from the care giver. It may then be released back into the wild.

If you are not inclined to give care to a lost baby possum, the least that you can do is to call up your local animal or wildlife rehabilitators and hand it over to them. Do not leave it to die off.

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Should You Feed a Baby Opossum?

A baby opossum is a tiny and fragile animal that needs a lot of care. In fact, it is unlikely to survive if it does not receive adequate care, and so it is safer to hand a baby opossum find over to professional wildlife rehabilitators, rather than give it inexperienced care, albeit well-meaning. It is indeed illegal for untrained individuals to take care of baby opossums in some states.



If however, it is legal in your state (be sure to check!) and you are quite determined to help the orphaned critter survive, you may proceed to feed it with strict adherence to expert guidelines. For an individual that has never nursed a baby opossums before, do not take care of more than one baby at a time.

Note that baby opossums do not eat egg, honey or any animal milk. If the baby is very small and yet to open its eyes, feed it with an animal formula like the Esbilac powder. This formula should be mixed with water in the recommended proportion and fed to the baby with the aid of a 1cc syringe, oral cannula or an eyedropper. The same tool should also be used to rehydrate the baby with water.

Feed the baby with Esbilac powder for a few weeks and keep track of its progress by consistently weighing it to be sure that the feed is affecting its growth as it ought to. When the baby does opens its eyes, you should add calcium and vitamins to its meals. These nutrients will further stimulate its growth and maturation. After about two months, change the diet to puppy or kitten food and boost it with adequate water. The baby should be showing signs of being able to feed itself by this time.

In the next few weeks, start feeding it with natural opossum diets consisting of fruits, potato, vegetables, small invertebrates, and others.

Water must be an integral part of the feeding lest the young critter should get dehydrated and die. Salt or sugar may be added to its water in moderate portions. One way to know that your critter is well hydrated is if it urinates regularly. If not, do the needful.

If you do all these conscientiously, the baby should survive and be ready to go back into the wild after about 5 months of regular feeding and care.

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