Finding a baby opossum is disorienting for most people. They’re small, strange-looking, and not something most Los Angeles residents have any experience handling or caring for. Your instinct is to help, but you’re not sure whether picking it up will make things worse, whether it needs food or water immediately, or who you’re even supposed to call.
This post walks you through exactly what to do in the first minutes and hours after finding a baby opossum, in plain language, so you can make the right decisions quickly without having to piece together conflicting information from a dozen different sources while a small animal sits in your yard waiting for help.
First — Is the Opossum Actually Orphaned?
Before doing anything else, take a moment to assess the situation. Not every baby opossum you find needs intervention, and understanding the difference between an animal that genuinely needs help and one that is fine on its own prevents unnecessary stress on the animal and unnecessary effort on your part.
Baby opossums travel on their mother’s back after leaving the pouch, clinging to her fur as she moves around. They can and do fall off, particularly younger joeys who haven’t fully developed their grip strength. If you find a baby opossum alone on the ground, the first question is whether the mother might be nearby.
Look for the mother in the immediate area, particularly in nearby vegetation, under structures, or anywhere an opossum might take shelter. If the mother is present and appears healthy, the best approach is often to leave the baby where it is and give the mother the opportunity to retrieve it, watching from a distance rather than hovering close enough to deter her return.
If the mother is not visible after a reasonable observation period, if the mother appears to be dead or injured, if the baby is clearly very young and small, or if the baby is cold, injured, or otherwise in obvious distress, it needs help and you should proceed with the steps below.
A general size guideline: baby opossums that are less than seven or eight inches long from nose to base of tail — not including the tail itself — are too young to be independent and need rehabilitator care if found alone. Opossums approaching or exceeding this size may be recently weaned and capable of surviving on their own, though if you’re uncertain, contacting a wildlife rehabilitator for guidance is always the right call.
Step One — Contain the Animal Safely
Once you’ve determined the opossum needs help, the first priority is containing it safely without causing additional stress or injury. Use gloves if you have them — not because opossums are dangerous or diseased, but to protect yourself from scratches from a frightened animal and to minimize the transfer of human scent.
A cardboard box is your best immediate container. Find one large enough for the animal to sit comfortably but not so large that it slides around inside. Poke small ventilation holes in the sides and lid. Line the bottom with a soft cloth, paper towel, or tissue — something that provides grip and a degree of warmth without any strong chemical smell.
Gently scoop the opossum into the box using a cloth or gloved hands, minimize direct contact as much as possible, close the lid securely, and place the box somewhere quiet, dark, and away from pets, children, and household activity.
Do not use wire cages, open carriers, or any container that allows the animal to see its surroundings. Visual exposure to an unfamiliar environment keeps a frightened wild animal in a constant state of alarm that a dark, enclosed box naturally reduces. Most baby opossums placed in an appropriate dark container will settle into a calmer state within a few minutes.
Step Two — Provide Warmth If Needed
Baby opossums cannot regulate their own body temperature effectively, particularly at younger developmental stages. A cold baby opossum is a medical emergency that needs to be addressed before anything else.
If the animal feels cold to the touch, provide gentle supplemental warmth using one of the following methods. A heating pad set to its lowest setting placed under half of the box — not the entire bottom — allows the animal to move toward or away from the heat source as needed. A small plastic bottle filled with warm but not hot water, wrapped in a cloth, placed near the animal in the box achieves the same effect. A cloth warmed briefly in a dryer and placed around the animal provides temporary warmth while you arrange a more sustained heat source.
The key in all of these approaches is gentle, indirect warmth that the animal can move away from if it becomes too warm. Direct contact with a heat source, or a heat source that covers the entire floor of the container with no cooler area available, risks overheating an animal that cannot move away from the heat.
Step Three — Do Not Feed or Water the Animal
This is the step that goes against every instinct you have, and it is also one of the most important things you can do for the animal’s survival. Do not offer food. Do not offer water. Do not attempt to drip liquid into the animal’s mouth. Do not offer milk, formula, fruit, or anything else regardless of how hungry or thirsty the animal appears.
Incorrect feeding is one of the most significant causes of preventable death and disability in rescued baby opossums. The specific nutritional requirements of a developing opossum are precise and stage-specific, and anything other than the correct species-appropriate formula provided by a trained rehabilitator risks causing metabolic bone disease — a painful condition where incorrect calcium and phosphorus ratios lead to soft, deformed bones and in severe cases paralysis.
Aspiration is the other major risk of attempting to feed or water a wild animal without training. Liquid entering the lungs rather than the stomach is a serious and frequently fatal complication when well-meaning rescuers attempt to hydrate a stressed animal without the proper technique and equipment.
The animal can wait for food and water until it reaches a licensed rehabilitator. The damage from incorrect feeding cannot be undone.
Step Four — Minimize Handling and Human Contact
Once the opossum is contained and warm, leave it alone. Do not open the box to check on it repeatedly. Do not talk to it, handle it, or attempt to comfort it with human contact. Do not show it to friends, family members, or children who want to see it.
Wild animals do not experience human attention the way domestic animals do. Every instance of human contact — being looked at, handled, spoken to, or exposed to human presence — is a stress event that carries physiological cost for an already compromised animal. The kindest thing you can do for an opossum in your care is to put it in a warm, dark, quiet box and then largely leave it alone until it reaches a rehabilitator.
Step Five — Contact a Licensed Wildlife Rehabilitator Immediately
With the animal contained and stable, your next priority is contacting a licensed wildlife rehabilitator and arranging transport as quickly as possible. In the Los Angeles area, Pasadena Humane Society accepts a wide range of orphaned and injured native wildlife including opossums and can be reached by phone to confirm intake and get specific instructions for your situation before you arrive.
California Wildlife Center in Malibu is another option for residents on the Westside or in the San Fernando Valley. Wildlife Care of Southern California serves the eastern portions of Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire. When you call, describe the animal’s approximate size, its condition, where you found it, and whether it has received any food or water since you found it — all of this information helps the rehabilitator prepare for the animal’s arrival and assess its immediate needs.
Step Six — Arrange Transport
Getting the opossum to a rehabilitator as quickly as possible is genuinely time-sensitive. Every hour in a home environment without appropriate nutrition and care is an hour of risk, particularly for very young animals whose developmental needs are most acute.
If you have access to a vehicle and are able to make the trip, go directly to the rehabilitator without unnecessary stops. Place the container on a flat, stable surface in the vehicle, keep the interior at a comfortable temperature, avoid loud music or other sources of noise stress, and drive smoothly rather than with sudden acceleration or braking.
If you don’t have access to a vehicle, if you’re unable to leave your current obligations, or if the rehabilitator is far enough away that the trip represents a significant logistical challenge, a private transportation service can bridge that gap. At Pets Go Taxi, we recently transported a baby opossum named Fern from Huntington Park to Pasadena Humane Society on behalf of a Los Angeles resident who didn’t have access to a car but wanted to make sure Fern received the care she needed as quickly as possible.
If you need help transporting a rescued opossum or other wild animal to a licensed rehabilitator in the Los Angeles area, text Brian directly or fill out the contact form to arrange transport quickly. We serve Los Angeles, Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank, Huntington Park, and surrounding communities and understand that wildlife situations don’t wait for a convenient time.
What to Expect When You Arrive at the Rehabilitator
When you arrive at Pasadena Humane Society or another licensed wildlife rehabilitation facility, staff will take the animal from you and conduct an intake assessment covering the animal’s physical condition, developmental stage, and history since you found it. They’ll ask whether it received any food or water, how long it’s been in your care, and where it was found.
This handoff can feel abrupt, particularly if you’ve become attached to the animal during the time it’s been in your care. The staff’s focus on the animal rather than an extended conversation with you isn’t rudeness — it’s the appropriate prioritization of an animal that needs prompt assessment and care.
After intake, most facilities don’t provide ongoing updates to the public on individual animals due to the volume of animals they handle and the staff time that would require. Some facilities have social media accounts where they occasionally share updates on animals in their care, which can be worth following if you’re curious about the outcome for an animal you brought in.
A Note on Opossums in General
Opossums have been around since the time of the dinosaurs, making them one of the oldest surviving mammal lineages in North America. They are North America’s only marsupial, they do not carry rabies due to their low body temperature, they groom themselves like cats, they eat ticks, insects, rodents, and other pests that most people would rather not have in their gardens, and they are genuinely gentle, beneficial animals that cause no harm to humans or domestic animals.
The baby opossum you found didn’t choose to be orphaned, doesn’t understand what’s happening to it, and is entirely dependent on the decisions you make in the next few hours. Getting it quickly to people who know exactly how to care for it is the most important thing you can do.
Fern — the baby opossum that inspired this post — made it to Pasadena Humane Society’s wildlife rehabilitation team in good condition, in the care of people who know exactly what she needs to grow up healthy and eventually return to the California landscape her species has called home for millions of years. That outcome started with one person deciding to help rather than walk past, and making the right calls in the hours that followed.