Skunk question, fast answer for preference.

[AA Maple]

Leaving your feed accessible...not a good idea.

I use a shovel to move corpses, hold your breath and never touch them.

Glad you got rid if it...watch for it's brethren.

Well not actually feed, leftovers from dinner that I threw out in the yard for the girls to hunt for in the morning. I hadn't seen the skunk for a week or more and totally wasn't thinking. Hopefully it doesn't have a bunch of friends out there. If I keep shooting them eventually it will end badly.

 

[pfields]

We had a problem with a skunk this past summer. It got under our neighbors deck at night. He put out a live trap with food but it wouldn't go in. I just happen to have some of those large green rat poison cubes and threw one under the deck. The next morning they found him dead inside the live trap. I guess rat poison works on skunks. We had a good laugh considering how many nights the trap was out with food.

 

[AA Maple]

We had a problem with a skunk this past summer. It got under our neighbors deck at night. He put out a live trap with food but it wouldn't go in. I just happen to have some of those large green rat poison cubes and threw one under the deck. The next morning they found him dead inside the live trap. I guess rat poison works on skunks. We had a good laugh considering how many nights the trap was out with food.

A good bit of irony there.

I do have some of those green poison mouse cookies. I'm really nervous about using it since I don't know what birds would do and I know I've seen chickens eat mice so I'd hate to inadvertently poison my livestock.

 

[hayley3]

I've never heard of a skunk hurting a chicken...eggs yes, they love those. Has anyone ever heard of seen of a skunk attacking a chicken?

 

[RoxysAnimals]

The second the gun goes off, the skunk will spray. As everyone else has said, go to where you saw it, and set a live trap and bait. It's the best way.

 

[hayley3]

I did a google search and found this:

19. Myth: Skunks can jump and climb well. (Fact: Only the little spotted skunk can. Striped skunks have limited climbing abilities and don't fall well. They cannot climb items such as table legs or jump like a cat. A wild skunk can only get into a garbage can or onto a picnic table if there are bags of garbage piled next to it, or if the benches are next to the table. To get over a fence, one side of the fence has to have a heavily-foliaged bush next to it or a huge pile of lumber that they can scramble up onto, but then when they get over to the other side, they have to make a long fall and can't get out sometimes. They don't climb into your attic, chimney or roof. If you smell a skunk up there, there is a rare chance that it could be a spotted skunk, but more likely that it is an owl that was sprayed while killing a skunk.)
20. Myth: Skunks kill chickens. (Fact: Skunks cannot chase and catch fast animals such as the mouse, rat, chicken unless it is dead, injured or trapped. They usually eat the eggs, babies in nests or slow chicks.)

 

[pfields]

I agree, we were lucky it ate the whole thing.

 

[AA Maple]

The second the gun goes off, the skunk will spray. As everyone else has said, go to where you saw it, and set a live trap and bait. It's the best way.

Except I gave it a face full of buckshot last night and it did not spray. I didn't spend all this money on a shotgun to have to deal with live varmints in a trap.

I've never heard of a skunk hurting a chicken...eggs yes, they love those. Has anyone ever heard of seen of a skunk attacking a chicken?

My birds are in very small tractors/nesting boxes at night. They'd be helpless if even a slow predator dug in there. They do fine in the day but after dark birds seem to get pretty lethargic.

Chickens or no it's not like I want to run into a skunk and startle it when I'm coming in or out. Varmints around here will be dealt with accordingly.

 

[Folly's place]

Chickens roost at night and are pretty helpless then, and skunks are opportunists who will happily take out setting hens or chicks on the ground. When I stopped tossing treats outside of the chicken run, many fewer critters showed up at night. I will also stop filling my wild bird feeders for a few weeks when the coons, etc, show up nightly for them. I have zero tolerance for varmits in my barn or at the house. Mary

 

[mommadearest]

We caught one in a hh trap, Story i was told if they can't raise their tail ur good to go, It smelled a little but not as bad as i could been.