Possum Pat

Possum Pat Non-Profit Organization, licensed-experienced small mammal rehabber, located in Hendersonville, NC.

This is what a Rehabbers desk looks like this time of year! Not good!
06/11/2026

This is what a Rehabbers desk looks like this time of year! Not good!

06/11/2026

The opossum in your yard just gave birth to twenty-five babies. Each one is the size of a honeybee.

After only twelve to thirteen days of pregnancy — the shortest of any North American mammal — she delivers up to twenty-five young at once. Blind. Deaf. No fur. Barely formed. They look like pink jellybeans with oversized front arms.

The moment they're born, they crawl. Unassisted. From the birth canal to the pouch. Three inches of fur. For a baby the size of a bee, that's the longest journey of its life.

They can't see. They can't hear. They navigate by instinct and gravity alone, pulling themselves forward with those tiny arms until they reach the pouch and find a ni**le.

She has exactly thirteen ni**les. Up to twenty-five babies are making the climb. The first thirteen to latch on stay attached for the next two months. The pouch closes around them and they fuse to the ni**le while they finish developing — eyes, ears, fur, everything that wasn't ready at birth forms inside the pouch.

This system has been running for roughly seventy million years. Opossums survived the extinction event that ended the dinosaurs. They outlasted saber-toothed cats, giant ground sloths, and every ice age since. The short pregnancy, the massive litter, the pouch — it's not primitive. It's the oldest working reproductive strategy on the continent.

She only lives one to two years. She compensates by doing this twice a year. The math works because it's been working longer than most mammal lineages have existed.

🐾 If an opossum is in your yard this spring:

A mother with a swollen pouch is carrying developing young — she's not injured or sick, she's working. Leave her alone and she'll move through your yard on her nightly route

By late spring, the babies ride on her back — up to thirteen small opossums clinging to the mother as she forages. It looks precarious but they rarely fall

If you find a baby opossum alone and it's smaller than seven inches nose to tail, it needs help — contact a wildlife rehabilitator. Larger than seven inches and it's likely independent

Opossums eat ticks, carrion, slugs, and fallen fruit. A mother with a pouch full of young is doing more pest control per night than almost anything else in your neighborhood

That slow quiet animal crossing your yard tonight is running the oldest reproductive system in North America. And she does it twice a year 🌿

06/11/2026

You've watched the crow on your roof every morning for years. She watches you back. You probably assumed that's just what crows do — sit on things and stare.

She knows your face. She knows which neighbor throws food and which one threw a rock. She told her kids. They told theirs. A crow that's never met you already knows whether you're safe — because someone in the family passed it down.

🐾 The one that got me: the gatherings you sometimes see around a dead crow aren't mourning. They're investigating. The flock is figuring out what killed it, memorizing the spot, and teaching every bird in the territory to avoid it. They're running a safety briefing.

Her family can span five generations on the same block. Older siblings help raise the new brood. The juveniles stay for years before leaving to start their own territory — watching, learning, babysitting.

She's been on that roof since before you moved in. Her grandmother held this block before her.

The crow staring at you from the gutter right now has a file on you 🐾

06/10/2026

One of the things wildlife rehabilitation has taught me is that we are not nearly as separate from nature as we like to think we are.

Just look at this face.

When I look into her eyes, I don't see "just" an opossum.

I see innocence. I see wonder and curiosity. A young life, just beginning her journey, discovering the world one experience at a time... just as we all did.

What strikes me most is what she *doesn't* know.

She doesn't know that some people find her species ugly.

She doesn't know that some people fear opossums, hate them, or see them as pests.

She doesn't know that many of the dangers she will face won't come from nature at all, but from the choices humans make every day.

She doesn't know about cars, rat poison, glue traps, or cruelty.

She doesn't know that her life will be worth less in some people's eyes simply because she was born an opossum instead of a puppy or kitten.

She only knows that the world is new, and exciting, and that it is up to her to live her life to the best of her ability.

Maybe that's why this face feels so familiar, and why this picture resonated with me so deeply....Because every one of us started there too, blissful unaware of whatever prejudice, judgements, and dangers may come our way.

We all entered this world with the same innocence. We had the same unfounded trust, the same wide-eyed wonder, and the same belief that the world was ours to explore and enjoy.

Somewhere along the way, we forgot that we ARE nature.

We began speaking about the natural world as though it exists outside of us, rather than recognizing that we are woven into it just as surely as the opossum, the fox, the squirrel, and the deer.

When we see ourselves as separate, it becomes easier to see other lives as less deserving of compassion. Easier to overlook their suffering. Easier to dismiss them as pests, nuisances, or inconveniences.💔

But when I look at this little opossum, I see what all living things begin as: innocent, vulnerable, and full of wonder for a world they do not yet understand.

I guess that's the takeaway message I want you to latch onto:

Not that they may be more like us than we realized...

But that we were never as different from them as we imagined.💕🌿

As always, thank you for your shares, your support, and for being part of this little army of kindness. We at Bolduc's Wildlife Rescue truly couldn't do this without you.

06/09/2026

Success! A great big Thank You to J & J for the awesome site! You guys are the best!

06/08/2026

Hallelujah! Getting ready to go release 19 Opossums down into the Green River Gorge!

06/08/2026

Please, please do not use glue traps.

No matter what critter you think they’re meant for, glue traps are incredibly inhumane and cause prolonged suffering. Animals caught in them often panic, struggle until they injure themselves, break bones, tear skin and fur, or die slowly from dehydration, starvation, or stress.

Even worse, glue traps don’t just catch the animals they were intended for. We regularly see unintended victims including birds, snakes, lizards, squirrels, opossums, and other wildlife (like this poor flying squirrel brought in today). These animals are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and suffer tremendously because of it.

Rehabber helping rehabbers I love it! Have always had a bit jealous of the squirrel rehabbers- they have a great network...
06/06/2026

Rehabber helping rehabbers I love it! Have always had a bit jealous of the squirrel rehabbers- they have a great network turns out the also have a fairy god mother that floats around delivering food, formula, money, medicines, towels and anything else rehabbers need. I was soo lucky and thankful I was the recipient of the fairy god mother - who crossed over to the opossum side - this past week! Delivering all of the above!❤️😘❤️😘
I always wanted a network like this for us opossum people but it just never happened, after years of trying! These days basic supplies for my animals cost me more than $150 a week I am sooo very thankful for everything you brought JEN! 🙏🙏🙏
She must of brought me 20 lbs of zucchini - so, some goes in tonight’s food, a bunch shredded for the next few nights go in the refrigerator, I packed some to go in the freezer and even enough for a nice sautee zucchini dish for Timm and I for this evening!! Your awesome girl! Thank you thank you for everything! 🙏🙏

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Text Pat For Best Response @ Phone Listed
Hendersonville, NC
28791

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+18285457572

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