It's been estimated that a single opossum can eat thousands of ticks a week, and that comes from the fact that they are extremely clean animals. They will travel vast distances looking for food and picking up ticks and then spend hours grooming those ticks off and eating them. While other animals just let those ticks feed on their blood, reproduce, and fall off, opossums are actually stopping the tick life cycle in its tracks. This helps protect both humans and animals from contracting tick-born