Skunk! (Update)

[mmwb]

Skunks don't seem as determined as some predators and are easier to keep out of the coop. As stated above, they are a member of the mustelid family and will kill as well as scavenge. They are a common rabies vector and yes rates of confirmed cases of rabies will vary by type of animal and geographical area. All mammals are capable of carrying and transmitting the virus. Skunks are one of the few that can often carry and not succumb to it.

I don't indiscriminantly kill anything. They are presenting a risk or I am trapping them during a season when they have value. Skunks seem almost impossible to keep out of my traps.

 

[Fancypants4569]

You asked how bad skunks can be and Im not trying to rain on anyones parade. I for one also think that baby skunks are precious, BUT they really do grow up to be little beasty's. I have to tell you what Ive been dealing with for the last couple of months, and skunks are more serious than some of you are thinking. They are not just egg eater, and Im saying this because I thought the very same thing when I started my chicken adventure

Something was digging a hole under the fence no bigger than 4in x 4in, so I thought it was a weasel or something small. It got my daughter's 4-H Bantam cochin rooster Brody first, we filled the hole with a brick, the next night it happened agian in different spot and it got one of my blk australorp pullet. We ended up spending a couple hundred dollars the next day on brick, poles and wire to Fort Knox the chicken coop. We didnt get all the way finish, and it got another chicken that night. It tested the fence all the way were we had left off, dug under and got our little bantum cochin frizzle hen"Tinkerbell". My husband isnt into the chickens as much as I am,so he says...hehe, but he loved Tinkerbell and after that it was war. Now Im still thinkin its a weasel, and we almost had the hole chicken yard finished. We dug 2 ft down and dropped poles with wire around them that we then nailed to the 6 ft wood fence that encloses the whole chicken yard and coop. By this time my DH is wondering if the whole chicken thing is worth it

Anyway, about midnight that next night my twin daughter,s are in bed and they hear the chickens screamin, one runs out with a flashlight and see's a skunk about to get her broody hen and she reached thought the door and grabbed it by the tail and flung it across the coop. It took off through a little hole on the last wall we had to fix. We kinda laughed after it was all sayed and done about my daughter under pressure becomes a skunk flinger, but told her not to do something like that again. But guess what, we confirmed it was a skunk wiping out our chicken's.
Ok, through all this I talked to a wildlife specialist and this is everything he told me...Female skunks can have up to 8 baby's. So if you have an adult female with up to eight baby's and there is an easy meal somewere, she will teach those baby's everything she know's, so now you have 9 skunks that are thinkin chicken dinner. So every year when those baby's become adults, they breed and multiply. They dont migrate someplace else, they just stay very close to home, and before you know it you end up with an overpopulation that likes chicken meat. I asked the wildlife guy if he could take them out in the woods and relocate them and he told me no because they will hunt out someone elses home and just become someone elses problem, and I definately wouldnt wish what we,ve been through on someone else. I have since trapped 7 skunk's, 2 adults and 5 baby's, the wildlife guy came and took care of them as I caught them.
If you are trapping skunks, use cantalope. I used canned catfood and caught a cat my first try, lol. The wildlife guy sayed fruit actually works best and it did, no cats after that

Cover the trap with a dark sheet and cut a slit in the middle so you can poke the handle of the trap through so you can grab the trap with out the skunk seeing you. If you need to confirm its a skunk in there all you have to do is pull the sheet back just enough to see black and white. The wild life guy told me a skunk wont spray what it cant see, and out of the 7 we caught no one got sprayed. Well, I hope some of this helps out and sheds some light on the little skunk thats so cute it could be called Flower off of Bambi. I think their cute too, but they are devestating on my children, wallet, and the chickens themselve's. I sure hope all my pullet's start laying soon, so I can start sellin some eggs so I can put some money back in the wallet after the hundreds we spent on deskunking the property

Plz, Plz, Plz, dont ever think that skunks are just egg eater....

 

[Ricky Crawford]

Last year as we were working on a fence, we saw a skunk approaching, We kept thinking it would leave when it saw us. When it did see us, it came straight to us. When it was within 3 feet, I whacked it with a fence post. A vet sent it off, and it was confirmed to be rabid. I have killed more grey fox with rabies than anything else, but skunks are big carriers in this area. My wife had to take the rabies shots after being attacked by a feral cat. We have lost lots of chicks to skunks when I was younger. They also would eat small holes in the cantaloupe and watermelons in the field. They eat lots of insects. They do make a mess in the yard digging for grubs. They are cute, but anything that smells that bad just needs to stay far, far away.

 

[CountryMom]

I have a pair of skunks that have moved in our place about a week ago. Maybe week and a half. In that time span we have lost all our eggs - until yesterday when I found their hole to the coop. And we have lost one chicken and one kitten. The two dead are smelling up the place under one of my outbuildings. I can only see pieces left.

I have yet to get either of them into a trap, but have it set. I don't have a soft spot for something that is eating my livestock and I will kill it when I catch it. About two years ago we had one move in and chase us from my arena where it set up a den at the fence line. Also sprayed my dog and one of our horses. I didn't have chickens then, but did loose a couple of half grown cats.