Do skunks always smell?

[dishfickle]

Hey everyone. have a critter of some sort lurking around my yard at night. I've hha skunks beefib, but I can always smell them. I have fake eggs lying around to encourage my girls to lay in one spot, and I find them all over the place. One was actually broken, and one was stuffed into a jar. Whatever it was must have strolled right past Inez, who decided to sleep outdoors. I thought skunks were bloodthirsty beasts. Any ideas what this critter may be?

 

[RWise]

Maybe a rat???

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Skunks can smell all the time but you may not smell the skunk unless it has released musk recently. In the dim dark recesses of time I played a game of chicken with skunks when the odds were in my favor. When I found one moseying around in the late afternoon I would run at it and force it to stand its ground at which point it would do a hand stand on its two front feet with its nose still facing away from me and its tail raised on high.

Then when skunk decided that it had buffaloed me sufficiently it would drop to all 4s and try to get away again. At which point I once more dashed at it and once more we had a Mexican standoff. I kept this up until such time that I figured that the skunk was far enough from my house or chicken pens and then I shot it.

If your curious I never got sprayed.

 

[centrarchid]

I have been sprayed, more than once. I have also been in extremely close quarters with a Striped Skunk as it worked a bee hive. I could smell something that was pretty strong but was not the full mix you associate with the spray.

Another critter that smells similar possibly all the time is the weasel. Mink may also always be a little stinky. Those critters are using the scent at least partly to communicate with con-specifics.