A few weeks ago, K took over the outdoor rehab of a pair of possums from a friend who was heading out of town. One of the possums wasn’t doing so well and so they decided to split them up when her friend got back in town. The very next day, the animal K kept would barely wake up and was in terrible shape. K rushed her to the clinic where she died shortly of the “major ick.â€Â Don’t look at me, that’s apparently the technical term for it.
Since no one really knows what the ick is and whether or not it is contagious (they’re sending the remains off for testing), K and the wildlife vet thought that it would be best to move the cage to a new spot and then clean it. The problem is that the cages (right) are fairly heavy 6′ cubes made of wood and steel mesh. Our first attempt to move it by picking it up would have taken between 4 and 6 people – we only had two. This meant that we would probably have to take the cage apart, move the pieces and reassemble: something I did not want to have to do.
Employing creative laziness, I realized that we had a set of wheels attached to boards lying around the house. By temporarily attaching them to the cage (left), I could construct a fully functional possum battle-cage!Â
Once the wheels were attached, we were easily able to move the cage (see below for a re-enactment) to a spot 20′ away, remove the wheels and reposition the cage on the guard mesh it sits on. All told, this only took 30 minutes: much less than the time needed to take down and reassemble it.
 