My chickens and guineas have the same job of eating ticks. They are nearly free range. I don't allow raptors to hang around, I chase them off. Dogs help me take care of the foxes and such. But I allow every possum I can to go freely on my property. It means I do pay a possum tax. Some chickens die. Which is okay, if they don't make a habit of it. If I catch them in the act, they get chased off. If the same possum shows up again, they get chased off with extreme prejudice (most recent went after the same mother hen twice; he got snatched up by the tail and thrown through the woods; he got the hint that time and left). A third time and they feed the other scavengers.
You're more lenient than I ever was. Blood for blood was my MO back when I had problems. I now allow daily free ranging (generally), then I shut them up in coops I built for the night. The coops have fenced-in runs with hardware cloth buried ~1' deep around the perimeter. Some coons found a gap in my defense where the poultry net met the roof/rafters, and I've since patched that (we were able to chase them off before they killed any birds, but they took our silkie's left eye... his name is now "Harvey").
Anyway apart from that one coon attack, I haven't had a problem in at least 4 years. Lost a duck to a red-shouldered hawk once during free range time, but it would take a bear to get in to the coop/run. Personally I like not having concern; sure it was effort to build all the stuff, but buy once cry once. I've lost more birds to old age than predators at this point. The opossums can have them then :)
Actually, I just realized you were probably speaking specifically about the possums. Yeah, very lenient. I nearly died of Lyme's disease several years ago. Anything that helps kill ticks gets all possible reasonable consideration from me.
Really, it wasn't a matter of leniency. It was more along the lines of "I need chickens that are smart enough to deal with this crap." First year of that was tough on my flock, but the ones who were left got pretty good at avoiding predators.
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