Help, Now what do I do?

Janis, your not the one who's been dropping skunks off at my house are you?

If you are, you and me gonna have a loooonnnngggg talk!



Notenoughtime, besides drowning the stinken' critter, you could also affixiate him. Place the trap inside a plastic bag and spray some hair spray, eether, etc. inside and close the bag up. It wont take long.

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r.h. in oklahoma

Raised a country boy, and will die a country boy.

BTDT.

Last year I found a skunk in the henhouse. We tried to coax it out. It was nighttime and we shined a light in on it through the slats in the wall, poked a stick at it...everything we could think of to get it to leave on its own. Didn't happen. So we shot it. In the henhouse.

The poor hens. I had to hold my breath when feeding and checking for eggs for weeks! The smell got in my clothing. It was horrible.

But I didn't lose any more chickens.

Beth

I have a live & let live policy, but skunks, coons, & stray dogs that kill have broken the "contract." I don't like drowning, but it stinks less than shooting. My dh shoots the critter in the trap, then one of us buries it, & I clean the trap.

We both get stinky but remember, the family that stinks together, stays together. No one else would get near us! Lots of showers & laundry.

A friend used to be the target of animal lovers who would dump coons & possums in her long driveway, thinking they would go into the woods. Instead, they would make their way to her small farm & start a killing spree. She had some choice words for those people!

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God bless,
Bonnie
Opportunity Farm
Northeast Washington

"While we have the opportunity, let us do good to all." Galatians 6:10

I've never had a skunk spray when I shot it in the head. Maybe I'm just lucky. I've use a couple of poles band clamped together to make something long enough to hook the trap and drag it out of the barn. As long as the skunk faces you, you're safe. They seem to want to watch were they're being dragged.

After the trap and skunk is out in the pasture, I "feed" it a .22 caliber pill. There might be a slight odor but absolutely nothing like a full blown release. You really don't smell it until you get up close to the trap.

I know the answer to this one!! Found myself in this same situation not long ago and boy I hope I never catch another one. Had just read a article in Countryside magazine about someone who had to deal with it, so I had a little "heads up".

First of all - cover the cage with a heavy or waterproof tarp that you will be throwing away afterwards. Make sure there is plenty of excess tarp over the edges and down to the ground.

Then, get two 2" x 2" x 8" wood pieces or equilivent - I happened to have some of these left over from a building project. I put a screw on the side of one end of each and used those as longer arms so I didn't have to get close to the cage. Then use those "arms" to pull the cage out of the coop.

We have a plan where we take all racoons and skunks up about 20 miles away to a nice little place in the woods with no closeby houses. Little creek there for them and all the comforts of a new home. So I had to get the cage in to my truck bed and those 'arms' helped me do that. I put down a piece of board to be under the cage so the stink wouldn't stay on my bedliner. Then bungie corded the cage in to place.

The fun part is the release part. I made sure the tarp was still covering up the cage and tipped it up on its end. I carefully opened the end and literally threw the cage away from me and I ran in the other direction. The skunk ran out of the cage and didn't stop to spray again.

By the time I was done, I was so sick from the spray. Even with the tarp, that skunk sprayed and sprayed and it was so bad. The oil from the spray just coats your throat. I had to leave the cage out in the rain and then sprayed it down with vinegar and let it sit out some more. Tarp had to go in a garbage bag and in to the trash.

I never want to deal with a skunk again. This was just a little spotted skunk, but boy, they have my respect as a force to be reconned with. I wish you luck!

PS - I don't shoot them as I know nothing about guns and would be more a danger to myself than the trapped animal. But if I did know about guns, or had someone to do this for me, that would be my option. Even though I take it up in to the forest where no one else would be bothered by it, there are enough of these critters that killing it once it kills your "livestock", seems reasonable to me. I'm a "everything should live together peacefully" kind of type to a point, but when they invade my buildings, that's it for them.

CindyOR

Just last week, my son and I were outside and I sniffed at the air and asked him, "Christopher, do you smell skunk?"

He got a terrified look on his face and said, "No. Mom, no. I won't do that again."



The thing is, he would. For one thing, I'm "Mom" and that makes me "Boss," but also because he wouldn't have the heart or stomach to shoot an animal trapped in a cage.

Oh, and I never did actually smell skunk the other day; I was just testing and teasing my kid. :banana02:

I, too, release them far from any homes or farms. In fact, the places I release them to, they would end up as part of the "cycle" (food for something else) or road kill long before they could bother anyone.

I have a couple of places I alternate with. One location has a small pond and the other one a creek.

Janis

I love animals more than anyone and have the biggest heart out there but.......if you'd see what a skunk can do in a chicken house. I have no idea why you'd even think of relocating one. Not when there only intention is to kill the hens. Dawn

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'This too shall pass'

Well, that wasn't my experience. The little guy I relocated, at most, got a few duck eggs and a couple of young chicks. I'm not even sure he was the one responsible for the chicks disappearing, although no more disappeared after he was removed.

If he got the duck eggs, he left the momma duck alone. If he got the chicks, he left the momma hen alone......as well as the rest of the birds in the coop.

Now, coyotes....they're a different matter. Over the thirty-plus years I've had birds, I have probably lost a thousand or more birds to coyotes, as well as a few cats. With coyotes, I have taken pretty drastic measures to do what was necessary to protect my animals.

Unfortunately, with coyotes, for every one or two of those you eliminate, there's a whole new crop waiting in the wings for their opportunity.

Maybe, because of the carnage coyotes can cause, I tend to be a little tolerant of the occasional mis-step by a skunk.

And I've never had the damage done by 'possums I've heard and seen other people say they've had. IMO, they're more likely to be lazy and opportunistic (scavengers) and be drawn to the leavings of other, more aggressive predators.

I do feel more comfortable relocating them, anyway.....just in case.

Janis

get all your chickens out, stop up all the holes you can, run a hose from your car exhaust into the house. Sleep tight mr. skunk.

Funny - my experience is just the opposite of yours. I've never had any trouble with coyotes or foxes. Just coons, skunks, & dogs. When we lived where there were possums we had a possum-killing dog, so after a while we never saw them. He must have been keeping the raccoon population down, too, because we rarely saw one until after he died. Then we saw a lot.

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God bless,
Bonnie
Opportunity Farm
Northeast Washington

"While we have the opportunity, let us do good to all." Galatians 6:10

Don't forget to check your state laws on releasing an animal. I don't know if skunks are listed, but here, a trapped raccoon has to be destroyed. If you are caught releasing it, you get fined. I've never checked for other critters, and state laws will vary.

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Nevermore

Thank you for all the advice. We are trying something now but do not want to say until we see if it works. But, if our first plan fails then we will try the exhaust with the truck. I think we can make that work since we have a small door that lifts up just so the chickens can get in then we will shut the big doors. No offense but the tarp sounds good and we may resort to that but I do not want that smell in the chicken house if at all possible. Will update if any changes, I have to wait til dh comes home this is one of those things for better or worse when we said our vows. I won't go through this alone. lol

Every one just take all you skunks over to lindalk house & let them loose over there where they are safe

Update: The skunk is dead. We got him out of the chicken house with a rope and shot him. And he did in up spraying but no one got in the line of fire. We did try to carbon monoxide him but melted the hose! lol and the first thing didn't work either. This has been one of those days that I realized that we still have a lot to learn but, it sure was fun.

When I caught by flashlight the varmint eating my turkey hens' eggs saw it was a skunk and so borrowed a neighbor's trap. Yup, we caught it. Borrowed the other neighbor's rifle and shot it, waited a few days and then emptied it. First neighbor didn't mind the slight ding in the wires. Nor the wait to get the trap back less stinky. It sprayed when wshot as we expected- that's why we shot from far away.

in town at our rent property we trap with a live trap, using canned cat food, the cheap kind......then we put a an old blanket that we normaly use for a drop cloth, we walk up to the cage slowly, with the drop cloth in front of us, hiding behind it, then cover the whole cage with the cloth....if it was in town we call the animal control, the guy that used to be the animal control man gave them an injection that knocked them out....the absolute best way.....the new kid that does it shoots them in a cage, and it is awful, the ground actually smells for months where he shot it at.
we dont get to many at home the dogs keep em away, although they have gotten sprayed....pheww