Opossum is eating all the cat food! Suggestions/Advice?

I leave one of those large self-feeding containers of cat food on my porch for the cats and up until now, not a problem. Then I noticed one night an opossum eating some and I didn't have the heart to chase it off. It looked up at me with those defenseless eyes and I thought, oh well, opossums have to eat too.

NOW though - the food is disappearing overnight! I filled the container up to about 3/4 full a day or two ago and today - almost empty!!!

The porch started off as a deck which has been screened in and sits about 2 feet or so off the ground with an opening. I had a plastic 2-step stool below the entrance to make it easier for the cats to come and go and have since removed that today.

I don't know what to do? Evidently opossums can climb, but this is a pretty fat one so I'm not sure if the little rascal will be able to climb in tonight. Anyone else ever have this problem? What did you do? I really don't want to call any agency to have him removed and destroyed. Thanks.

I feed two local strays and leave food out over night. I've had opossums and raccoons hit the bowl at night and a Muscovy Duck feeds during the day (pooping all over my driveway in the process). They are just looking for food and we have provided a ready source. The very last thing I would do would be to call animal control to take the animal away - I don't know what they would do to the animals. I don't have an answer other than to just live with it if you want to feed the cats.

I started bringing the food in at night. The cats would eat during the day.

and it doesn't appear that the opossum returned. Good idea on just bringing the food in at night (why didn't I think of that?) I guess that what makes these boards so helpful! :-)

I'm going to try that tonight. Thing is, I'm getting ready to out of town somewhat soon, so maybe if I take the feeder in at night, it might be that the opossum will figure out that the food is no longer there and move on (or else he is just too fat to climb in). Thanks!

put the cat food in a trap and wait for the possum. Them move him to some place away from you. They are nasty critters.

For what it's worth, I'm told that raccoons and opposums can climb, but they cannot "jump". So if the food can be elevated on something where they cannot climb up, that might be helpful. Obviously, it still has to be at a height to where the cats can jump to get to it.

I used to feed my cats on the top of the dryer in our laundry room. There was a cat door there. One evening I found 3 raccoons on the dryer pigging out on the food. Somehow they managed to jump up on the dryer; I don't know how else they would have gotten up the slick surface.

The skunks couldn't get up there though. But that's an entirely different story.

Shoot them. And he did.

Barely able to control my anger I calmly said, "Well I used to have that problem, but then I started
feeding the cats in the morning. The food was gone by nightfall...problem solved".
He looked at me with something between surprise and embarrassment and said,
"oh, I'll have to try that".

And I do mean this. This "critters" that you find around your home can be rabid. I recently had a rabid skunk that they found.

Years ago I had raccoons and what a nightmare they were. They were coming into the house at night through an open window.

Alas, I adopted a Maine Coon kitten. He grew up to be a real big cat and he did not like skunks, raccoons, other animals coming around and he quickly drove them all away luckily (including huge sewer type rats! ACK!!).

However, if it weren't for him I would had to keep the windows shut and tried something (anything!) to keep them away. I even considered getting some traps from the Humane Society but never had to do that thanks to the Maine Coon.

They are cute at first but my god they carry so many diseases!

Problem solved.

Putting food outside will also attract all kinds of other rodents and other critters like mice, rats, squirrels, raccoons, etc. You don't want to be attracting these animals to your home.

I bring the food in every night and put it back out in the morning. Nothing else works that I've found. Removing or killing them is only a temporary solution anyway, others will replace them in time.

You must live in the woods. No one around here would ever feed a cat outdoors except at a TNR feeding station. Who wants rats and rabies or aggressive raccoons?