This morning when I went to check on the chickens, I found a baby skunk under the coop along with one dead chicken and several very scared chickens and one missing chicken (she could have simply been hiding, not completely sure on this one). Not being prepared for this, I simply managed to run the skunk off (without getting sprayed). It did not act scared of me at all, in fact tried to play with the cane that I was using to entice it to leave. Our coop is built on a trailer and during the summer several chickens roost on the axles instead of going inside. The coop is inside a 16' x 16' pen with an access hole for the chickens - they can also fly over the top. It's purpose is more to keep the goats out of the chicken feed rather than keep the chickens confined. There were also two eggs on the ground (I have one that likes to lay under there) that we missed when gathering eggs. The eggs were untouched, though the baby skunk was staying close to one. The dead chicken had wet feathers around her head, and I did see a flesh wound on the top of her head - nothing else. We have not had any trouble with any other predators as we have guard dogs that usually keep everything out of the pasture. At one point I managed to pull the skunk out from under the coop with the crook of the cane, and the dogs looked at me like I was crazy for telling them to go after it. I was thinking at first that there had to be a momma skunk that had helped. But, I read that skunks usually leave momma around the end of July/early Aug. Also, if it were hungry, why would it not have eaten the eggs or started eating the chicken? Since the skunk could fit through the fence, we are going to put some chicken wire around it and close the access hole before going to bed. Anyone have any thoughts on the situation?
Kill it or it will return, and might bring others with it. I have killed around a doze skunks from my front porch since getting chickens about 4 years ago. They are a plague that I will go to great lengths to eliminate.