emmamark

Hi all, I’m a little concerned about an opossum we caught in a Havahart trap. We set Havahart traps along the borders of our chicken coops to catch raccoons, then release them the next day. Opossums and our own cats aren’t unusual to catch in these.

Overnight we caught an opossum, it was fine and then when we went to let her go she had bled out. She had no wounds externally, she wasn’t shut in the door of the trap (and even if she was this traps door is not heavy like some of these larger traps are). This includes her tail. I went and looked at the body and she had rectal prolapse, is it possible hemorrhaging could have caused her death? With no blood on the face, she must have bled solely out of her rectal cavity. A family member suggested she had a distemper. She was very small but full grown, she had some yellowing on the teeth. Before I saw the body I thought maybe her heart gave out.

There is a road down the hill so she could very well have been clipped by a car. I hate to think that she suffered and we didn’t notice something was wrong, someone could have put her down so she wouldn’t have suffered.

Any idea if this sounds like disease or trauma? I hope it is an isolated event and the animals don’t have anything.