I thought I would test the waters here and ask if any of you would be interested in listing yourselves on a waiting list to purchase and receive striped possums. If we can get enough of a list going I may be able to import a number of them this year or even soon, perhaps 10 to 30 heads. Right now I cannot really give a price but my guess is that it would be $250 to $350 per head. Then there will be the additional factor of getting them to you via roadtrip or shipping. My goal is to simply end up with a mating pair for myself but I thought I would see if others have interest in this beautiful animal.
I keep getting conflicting information on these critters, but you can easily see that they are much larger than sugar gliders. I would expect about a pound or a bit more in weight and probably 8 to 10 inches in length.
I would think that boy/girl pairs would be the best way to go. We can always swap offspring within our little co-op group in the coming future in order to further our captive numbers.
You can reply here in public as an anonymous post listing what you'd like and I'll know who you are and keep a tally.
They are so cute!! How do you care for one of these? Do they eat insects and nectar in the wild like suggies? Are they very friendly? I think they are fascinating but I wouldn't be able to have one at the moment. It might be on my future pet list though.
They are sooooo freakin CUTE!!! I would love to have a pair of these exotic cuties. But I'm not able to open my money pocket that far to afford these cuties. I have a SSI income that is way to small for anyone! But I thought I would reply to your site to maybe help with vote of, yes you should try an get these little ones. Maybe down the road I could / would be able to afford a pair. Sorry if this not to you at this momment in time.
I would like to know a little bit of information pertaining to their upkeep as well. They look like they would be a wonderful addition, but I want to make sure that it is within my means to take care of them along side my other animals. But, if all seems ok, I would very interested in getting a pair.
I have emailed those of you who are interested. I think the striped possum may become a reality for us. If anyone else is interested, better say so quickly.
I dont have much on that right now. There are few if any people who have kept them and who are willing to share. I do have a few emails into some zoo folk right now so as I learn about their successes with these animals I will share. for all intents and purposes, this is a new type of exotic animal to come to us so we're all newbies here and I believe sharing all of our experiences at the same time would be invaluable. For now, my take is that their keeping will be very similar to that of our sugar gliders.
Rach, Ko, Jett, anyone, feel free to chime in if you folks have anything more specific. I believe that a sugar glider and even a general opossum diet will do the trick as it does for our sugars.
This pdf file has the Healesville Sanctuary diet sheets for the possums they keep there so you might like to check out these diets. They all look fairly simple infact I would think they are more simple than the gliders diet.
So you know what you will be getting into when you begin to handle your frightened stripeys: The first verbalization sounds like a sick cat and the second sounds like a horny duck with large teeth.
I'm SO interested and am SLOWLY "introducing" the idea to the hubby. I already have him convinced they're cute and he hasn't asked about the price...yet. What do you think about having them in a room with suggies? I'm going to have a suggie room in the new house but want to make sure I have room for another really large cage in another room IF need be and this worked out. I'm very curious about these cuties!
I'm very curious about them as well. I see no problems with them sharing space with sugars. My possums now are doing fine as neighbors and these kinds of things usually share a forest, so the scents and sounds shouldnt be an issue.
How big of a cage would these guys need? I have the room. Does anyone know if they can be litter trained or if they potty everywhere like suggies? I imagine the pee being a lot more then what comes out of a suggie at a time. Wish we had a zoo close with some to check out.
Kyro, I haven't even introduced the idea to my husband. He would call me nuts, say no, and or roll his eyes. Yet if I decided it was something I wanted to do he would be all for it once they are home.
I think I read that their life span was relatively short in the wild(2-4 yrs?) but the longest documented life span in captivity was 12 years. Sounds similar to suggies. Camie, you're close enough that we can send the hubbies elsewhere while we dote on the furbabies...all of them...and your new non-fur baby! Sounds perfect to me! Oh, and mine already called me nuts AND rolled his eyes SO I just need to get them here. LOL
They are very cute. However, I have to pass. I have 5 elderly dogs who need attention and care and it just wouldnt be fair to them to bring anymore animals into our house.
Being arboreal, I would expect them to be similar to sugars in how they can poo and pee at most any time. With that said, they are larger animals, and they may have more ability to control. The small possums that I have now seem much more able to hold their stool, but they are more terrestrial in nature and that capability is more important for their well being. We dont want opossums pooing in their nest holes.
I have some emails out to keepers of these possums in order to learn what I can from them. So far it seems that a mating couple can cage together but they may not be as colony oriented as sugars are. That is one of the things I am looking forward to learning first hand.
I think an Exel tower cage
would hold 2 just fine. Of course any arboreal animal would benefit by having lots of room to romp around and explore, so the larger the better.
I've been looking for info like crazy and everything I've found suggests they should actually be alone as they live mostly in solitude except for mating season. I wonder if it would actually cause problems to keep a mating pair together all the time?
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Definitely ducky sounding! I wonder how loud they are? 
