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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