Raising Baby Opossums
Teaching Them Food & Preventing Fights
By Molly Kalafut
Lactation Stage
Newborn short-tailed opossums are tiny and pink and immediately crawl to their mother's abdomen and attach onto a nipple, which then swells in size to fill their mouth. If a baby is detached after the nipple swells, the nipple will be too large for the baby to reattach. Mothers may remain very reclusive the first 2-3+ weeks after birth and may come out only to eat, drink and go to the bathroom. Food and water should be placed near the nest. To help the mother keep up the energy for lactation, temperature near her should be increased and some breeders add a small dish of half-and-half or soak her dry food in half-and-half.
Development Stages
Babies start to detach from the teats during the third week after birth and after four weeks develop fur and nibble food themselves. When they emerge from the nest they will leap and climb on their mother and follow her around. The mother and babies can be handled immediately after birth (being careful not to dislodge the babies), but care should be taken not to stress the mother. Many wait until 5-6 weeks to start playing with the babies, though many breeders and owners report the best time for socializing STO is around age 3-4 months. Sexing can be done as early as one week, when the boys start to develop visible testes that start light-colored and grow larger and darker as they age.
Weaning & Separating
The babies will start to forage and eat what their mother eats. It is a good idea to provide small pieces of dry food softened with cream or half-and-half. Soft fruit (like applesauce and banana) is good to provide, and some breeders recommend exposing babies to a wide variety of fruits. When feeding crickets, enough should be provided that the siblings don't fight over them. The environment should be rich with things to climb, places to hide, toys to play with and an exercise wheel - all help distract them from fighting with each other.
They can be separated from the mother as early as 6 weeks, but most wait until after 7-8 weeks to separate. By this point boys have very evident testicles and are easy to distinguish from the girls. Male and female siblings need to be separated from each other by 3 months to avoid inadvertent breeding, and the siblings should be separated from each other into separate cages at the first signs of aggression between them. Brothers are likely to become aggressive towards each other sooner than sisters.
