The main photo is really too busy to be able to see the pellets clearly (they seem much less "camouflaged" in real life), so I zoomed in to let you see the pellets up close. The closeup is a little fuzzy, but gives a better feel of what you'll see in the feeder.
Do the birds care?
ReplyDeleteYuck.
The birds don't seem to care. And the owner of the backyard wildlife store said the pellets were actually regurgitated bits of sunflower seed shell (rather like a mini owl pellet), not feces. I never could find any information about whether they were actually regurgitated bits, but the opossum feces shown on various websites seemed to look much different - rather like cat droppings.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. When people say someone "eats like a bird," I don't think they had taken this into consideration. Ha!
ReplyDeleteI too finally discovered a young possum in my feeder that was leaving behind the pellets.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the ID! I too have these pellets at my feeder.
ReplyDeleteFor the past three mornings I have been finding these "pellets" in my feeder, also. I thought at first it was Owl pellets until I actually caught the little booger sitting in my feeder about 1am this morning eating to his hearts content! But, I did not know they "regurgitated" like that. So glad I found this blog - mystery solved!
ReplyDeleteI also saw a visiting opossum spit out pellets.
DeleteThe past three mornings I had found these "pellets" in my feeder, also. I had thought they were owl pellets, too, until I caught the little booger in my feeder at 1am this morning. I had no idea they regurgitated like that, tho. Mystery solved!
ReplyDeletePat, Thanks for stopping by and letting me know that this post was helpful. Did you know that possums were tick-eating machines? They are great to have around, as they destroy almost all of the ticks that attach to them. I've come to think of possums as "tick vacuums"!
ReplyDeleteAh, thanks for this. I've been kind of grossed out about how the possums seem to poop where they are eating. I guess this is better.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this! We have the same pellets - have for weeks - but couldn't figure out what was making them. Last night between midnight and 1am we saw the little possum in the feeder, and this morning the pellets were there again. This is the first place I could find confirmation of our experience - so thanks!
ReplyDeleteI saved a baby possum and it's about a month and a half I let it have some chicken then all of a sudden it started kind of gaging and it threw up,twice now,I washed her mouth out. It kind of looks like a white pellet. It scared me I wouldn't hurt it for the world, she is kind of my buddy now. I am so glade this came up when I was trying to find out.
ReplyDeleteOpossums do not regurgitate anything like this. When they throw up it is typically due to parasites and they re-eat whatever comes up. Once they been wormed the regurgitation stops. What they are doing is chewing the seeds and spitting out the hulls in a wad. They do the same thing with grape skins and other fibrous foods. I am very interested to hear you are finding them In Your feeders! This is really important information to know. The captive opossum diet is extremely difficult to match what they eat in the wild and MBD metabolic bone disease is quite common. Thank you for sharing this, we are always trying to help adjust the diet to better match what nutrients they need and this is great information for us to have 🙌🏼
ReplyDeleteI had seen these on my deck after an opossum had been eating some spilled sunflower seeds. I didn’t know if it was something that had been mixed with the seeds but could see it looked like bits of grass. After the second night of seeing the opossum on my deck eating more sunflower seeds and finding a lot more of the pellets, I googled “opossum pellets” and this came up. So glad to know what it is.
ReplyDeleteI had exactly the same thing show up in my squirrel feeder this week. Suspected that's what it was and finally remembered to look online and viola! Guess we'll have to start bring them in again at night.
ReplyDeleteThis is so helpful. This has been a mystery for me for months. Do you think it harms the birds eating around it?
ReplyDeleteI have observed the same pellets left over in my feeder also. I have racoon, possum, and flying squirrels in my yard and have seen all 3 in the feeder on the same night. But it is the possum that seems to leave the mystery pellets. My husband thinks they are poop, but I disagree. I do think they are bits of sunflower shells wrapped up with grass. Where the grass comes from I don't know, unless it is already in their stomachs at the time they eat the seeds.
ReplyDeleteThank you for solving my mystery! It is now 2022, and every morning I've been finding balls of partially chewed bird seed in my feeder that resides on my porch railing. As other posters here have said, they are reminiscent of owl pellets, but are not made of bone, hair, and feathers. The photos that are posted in this thread look exactly like the pellets in my feeder, so mystery solved!!!
ReplyDeleteI’m so excited to find this! We have found these piles of clumps amongst our black sunflower and pecan piles that I leave out for the birds as well and I couldn’t figure out what it was! I’m SO excited that it is possums!! Thank you again for the post (in 2012).
ReplyDeleteI get Oppossums, Raccoons, and Skunks as nightly visitors regularly and have put out a few pounds of dog food and a few handfulls of almonds most nights during Spring thru Fall to help the mom's raise and feed their young a bit easier. In late fall the Raccoons move on to establish their own territories I think, and so put out much less food for them.
ReplyDeleteBut this spring I've noticed much bigger chunks of white than the OP posted a photo of, with brown bits in it left at multiple (4) food piles I put out,...about nickle sized and a bit odd shapped as they are almost triangular in shape.
TONIGHT I went out to add a rare additional treat, as I found a 1 pound 93% organic ground beef pack that was 3 days past date, and I opened it and it didn't smell so I cooked it up really well with just a hint of light pink throughout. When I went out with my rechargable bicycle light to deliver the beef, don't I see an oppossum staying back at me!
Interesting that at three of the four food piles of dry dog food and raw almonds I'd put out an hour earlier, there were these larger nickle sized pellets dropped on top of the foot. It was dry and crumbly, and I moved it off of the dog food and nuts with an old spoon as I too noticed the birds seem to like it,... as it's all gone the next morning!
As there were 3 of 4 fools piles "hit" with the pellets, MY take on it is the Oppossum was marking his territorial food stashes, since he hadn't yet eaten from them to any large extent, as all the food piles were mostly full. This I think to discourage the Skunks and Raccoons, possibly,... BUT...
... I also think the Oppossum "might" have have been trying to empty his/her stomach to make room for a more nutricious source of food now available to "gorge on! Much like the Roman Glutony Sessions, where they barfed and went back for a refill! :-)
My camera battery was dead tonight and I had already broken up the pieces before I found the beef to cook up. But this happens often enough that I'll try to get some photos up soon of these odd shapped larger shapped pellets...
Cheers,
Joseph Tousignant
Upstate New York near Albany