Ringtail possums

Lumley & Professor Bags

Lumley, a Ringtail possum, came into my care weighing a tiny 86 grams . (Almost 4 months old) after being found walking a busy road in the middle of the day. Lucky to have been found He was a little dehydrated, hungry and very scared. Still dependent on his mother and living in the pouch, he was being kept warm in a humidibox with a surrogate pouch until he could regulate his own temperature and was raised with a special milk formula. Lumley is now 5 months old weighing 160 grams he still needs his milk for another couple of weeks but is eating plenty of native food and the odd insect. The next step is to dehumanise him so he can learn to survive in the wild. He has a female ringtail waiting to meet him when he is a little older and they will be released together in late May.

Ringtail possums are very secretive, living in well-hidden homes made of sticks, bark and leaves called dreys. They breed between April and October and have up to 3 babies with a life span of around 4 years. Main predators are cats, dogs, foxes and owls. Possums are highly territorial once they reach maturity having a home range of about 4 hectares, because of this they can not be relocated to another area. Possums today are facing the problem of loss of habitat and are choosing to take up residence in people's roofs.

If you are having this problem you need to build or buy a possum box and place it reasonably high in a gum or similar tree near the house, with a Banana inside to attract the possum to the box. Then find out where the possum is getting in to your roof and at night, when you have seen the possums leave to forage for food, close up the hole.

17 January, 2010