Got another grinner today I have been checking them to see how real that eating 5,000 ticks a day meme was, my guess this one was carrying his 3 meals for the next week or so. Windy here most of the day so the fur was blowing around a lot back and forth I was shocked to see 100s of ticks on this thing with clusters in places around the head and along the body. Nasty

Dang, Nasty is right...

Don’t let facts get in the way of a good story, erm, I mean meme.

A meme made up by PETA to give them some worth maybe! LOL

That hairy finger is almost as bad lawdog!

Tick free! LOL

Apparently that one had no friends to pick and eat them ticks off of him..You probably killed all his buddies thus he was covered in the ticks..Couldn't eat them all him self and they swarmed him..LMAO! I just picked 6 ticks off the pup this morning..Rain ever lets up for couple days I won't be stocking my yard with opossums, I will be spraying Permethrin..

Mac

Next years crop producers.............interesting that there are no engorged females present.( except one)
Dermacentor variablis or andersonii ?

Great post! I called that Tick propaganda When I first saw the possum post on facebook. A picture is worth a thousand words.

You would think they would go for some meat like the body instead of the ear. At least that's where they get me.

Sure doesn’t look like it’s been mowing down the ticks. Throw that joker into the incinerator!

I bet a tick could pass through the digestive tract of a 'possum and still be alive. Ducks and geese do eat some ticks along with the grass they gobble and I think guinea fowl seek ticks out. Horses probably eat some with the grass also but again they'd pass right through, probably.

I doubt anything could survive the trip through a possum and live in that toxic looking discharge they have!

Fellow told me he put an empty .22 case over a tick on top a wood fence post and tapped it into the post, said 3-4 years later he was back there and noticed that .22 case; said he dug it out and the tick crawled onto his hand. They hard to kill, withstand freezing and will still be some left after a wild fire.
I think that discharge is defense mechanism like the skunk spray and not GI tract related. Only happens if they fake being dead and rotted.

Lol, yup

Last I read they can go 7 years without eating if that's true!

I don't much care for those nasty possums, but you gotta feel for that poor fella in the photos. That's a load of ticks!

Summer skunks are not any better not sure how they can even hear with the ticks that cover their heads in the summer months!

Between the different life cycles they can get to 7 years if they don't get their host blood meal.