I think Marilyn has also rehabbed raccoons or at least knows something about them.I seem to remember her talking about them.I could be wrong. Sounds like you already know what you are not suppose to be doing Glenda.My brother use to go "coon" hunting with my uncle when he was a kid.I know,cruel but that was back in the late 50's.One night they found a baby raccoon and DB brought it home and raised it.It was so cute when it was a baby and so much fun to watch but as it got older it got mean.He ended up taking it back to where he originally found it and let it go.

When my daughter was in 6th grade the teacher gave her a Gerbil to bring home at the end of the year. Little did we know that it was pregnant....LOL.. Within a week we had 7 more and they continued breeding until she had 27 in a 10gal aquarium. Thinking they were a bit over populated she got another aquarium and put a couple in it,,and guess what, within a couple weeks we had 7 more,,then another 7 and so forth until there was about 25 to 30 in that aquarium, but there was always 7 in the liter, or so we thought. To her credit Jessie took this project on as a science project. She got a gram scale and she weighed all the infants at birth, then every other day for three weeks, and she kept careful records. After nearly a year and a colony that had now grown to 18 aquariums and about 250 Gerbils she concluded that: 1.In a new colony there is always 7 in a litter and they have almost a 100% survivabilty rate. 2. they double their birth weight every 48 hrs for the first two weeks. 3.As the population of a colony begins to reach about 1/2 saturation they continue breeding and having 7 per litter, but there are usually two to three still born. 4.When the population is nearly at maximum saturation they only have 4 per litter and about 30% are still born. 5.When the colony reaches saturation they stop breeding entirely, but if you remove a few, they will instantly start breeding again. 6. Only the Gerbils know what the saturation population is for their colony. In some 10gal aquariums they might maintain the population at 25 while in another they might maintain 35, but whatever population they decide is where they will stay. 7.If you take a Gerbil out of one colony and drop it into another colony they will immediately kill the stranger. 8. If you reduce the amount of food they will immediately begin killing off the old or weak ones. During the second year of her study she went to the science dept at our local state college and discussed her project with one of the professors. The professor was so impressed with her study that he used to stop by our house every couple months to discuss it with Jessie. Jessie continued her study for the next 6 yrs and in her Senior year of High School she won first place in the county in the Science Fair. Jessie is now 30yrs old and she has a Masters Degree in Environmental Science and is working in a Federally funded research lab.....not bad for a kids silly grade school project.

The only male relatives I have are my husband (almost 70), my brother....who is in his 80's and my nephew, who is in his 50's and married. (Oh, and I have a son-in-law, who is around 40 years old). I don't expect any of them to have a sexual attraction towards Carol Christmas. I mean, we may be kind of "out there"...I am a possum rehabber and that is kind of strange, but making anyone feel sexually uncomfortable would be the fartherest thing from any of our minds....of that, I am sure. I think my nephew would like to have some family. His mother and siblings are all dead. She is likely, his full sister. I would caution him (and will caution him) if this proceeds, to go very slowly and let her take the lead on this. She may never want anything to do with any of us, and that is understandable. She might well resent any intrusion in her life....and I understand that completely. My life is very quiet. I would not be open to a bunch of drama, myself. I will see if I can find an adoption group to join. If for no other reason than to get feedback on what they think about this. If I go to any meetings, I will take my nephew. I'd invite my brother along, but he is getting kind of feeble. The very last thing I want to do is cause anyone any discomfort or make them feel uneasy. Just because she is a blood relative, does not mean that her life experiences haven't made her entirely different from any of us and she may have nothing in common with us, and no interest in us whatsoever. I am not at all a pushy person. I don't want my "idle curiosity" to be a source of trauma or pain or the slightest bit of problem for anyone. I would like to give her some info on family health issues....which really aren't many....we are all very healthy....and I can give her pictures of her birth mother. I can fill in any gaps she may have, but I would want her to know that she is under no obligation to include me (or us) in any part of her family. When I was growing up, my grandmother (father's mother) lived next door to us. My mother never got along with her mother in law, and from what I understand, the worst insult anyone could say in our family was "you are just like Grandma Stout"....who really was known to be a rather mean old lady. I remember when I was about 9 years old, going over there to play with a couple of cousins and when it was time to eat lunch, she made me go home. When I came back, after lunch, I had left my stick horse there, and my grandmother had thrown it on her burn pile and was setting it on fire. I tried to pull it out of the fire and she hit me with her cane. Anyway, I really looked up to one of my cousins....mainly because I loved horses and she knew a lot about horses....although neither of us had a horse. Anyway, I was not allowed to play with her, and the last time I saw her was in 1957, at my grandmother's funeral. I found her on Facebook and I very reluctantly sent her a friend request and message. I was afraid she would want nothing to do with me, because our families didn't get along. However, I was pleasantly surprised...and we have become good friends and we often joke about how shocked our folks would be that we have become good friends.

Everything What's Wrong with People...........I could write that one. Don't have time right now, but the person knows nothing about possums. Some of the good things about possums....they eat mice, roaches, slugs, snails, ticks, carrion....darned near everything. Mostly they don't live in holes in the ground or dig. They live under brush piles or in or under old buildings. They don't carry rabies, distemper or parvo. They can carry a parasite that causes a paralytic disease in horses, but so do birds and other animals. You can tell how concerned about it I am....not at all. They are 70 million years old....living dinosaurs. The only marsupial in North America. Babies are born after only 13 days gestation....born as literal embryos. Travel from birth canal to pouch, attach to a teat. A mama possum has 13 teats. I have handled thousands of possums and only found one with 13 babies. Average is 7. Sometimes 10. Rarely. Mother drips milk....they do not nurse like most mammals. Orphans have to be fed by stomach tube. They have high calcium requirements...my possums eat yogurt every night and things like chicken necks. (Insects and snails are very high in calcium). Very, very rarely will a wild possum bite you if you pick it up. Most pick them up by their tails. I don't. I pick them up under their stomach, like I would a cat. Not by the skin on their neck....they don't have loose skin. The only possums that have ever bitten me were injured or had been terrorized by people or dogs, or ones I have raised. They have 50 sharp teeth. I get bitten fairly often. I must be used to whatever bacteria they have in their mouths, because I never get infected from it. It hurts and is almost healed the next day. I used to get all the possums trapped by the Houston pound....around 500 a year. Some had been left in traps and they had chewed the wire until they wore their jaws down until you could see the teeth sitting on the jawbone. That takes 6 months to heal. A long time in the life of a possum, because a wild possum seldom lives more than a year, year and a half. Even in captivity, they have short life spans. A four year old possum would be about like a 100 yr old person. Very geriatric. The only possums that I see that even have fleas are those that came from living in town and lived somewhere like under a house or some place with a lot of cats that were infested with fleas. Very seldom does one have fleas. If they do, I treat it with frontline. I worm them with an injectible cattle wormer. I could write more....but I will just say that the last thing I ever wanted to do was rehab any animal. I dread spring every year because the shelters send me baby possums to raise. I could quit but there is no one to take my place. Every year someone sends me a possum that was raised by a human and not fed right and they have metabolic bone disorder....short, clubby legs, can't walk. Deformed heads. It is awful. I put them down or send them to the wildlife center to be put down. I have kept a couple that didn't have it really bad, but they were non releasable. I like possums. They are one of my favorite animals. I feel like I have a lot in common with them. We are both misunderstood scavengers.