What Caliber for Skunk and Where To Hit It?

[10-Ring]

8 hours ago, Chucktshoes said:

Up close and personal the smell is overwhelming. I do have to admit that I find the faint whiff I get now and then of skunk spray while driving a fairly pleasant smell. 

I might have been out on the road a wee bit too long.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

If you like the smell of skunks, I've noticed that Ascend Amphitheatre is absolutely eaten to with them during any concert there.

[jpx2rk]

I had not thought of how a road kill skunk can smell up a road, and you KNOW when it's a recent casualty.  Years ago, I was driving my MIL's car at night and nailed a skunk (heard the thump) but hoped it had not released.  Pulled into her garage, and immediately smelled it, and she started yelling "back the car outside, back the car outside".  Funny, but man did it smell bad.  Took about a week and driving the car in a rainstorm to get rid of the smell.   

[ShaggyRS6]

9 hours ago, Chucktshoes said:

Up close and personal the smell is overwhelming. I do have to admit that I find the faint whiff I get now and then of skunk spray while driving a fairly pleasant smell. 

I might have been out on the road a wee bit too long.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

It goes from smelling like weed to a teacher I used to have a school that had really bad BO to then being unbearable. Those are my 3 levels!

 

On another note, i'm so glad I started this thread.  I learnt a lot!

Edited August 14, 2019 by ShaggyRS6

[Chucktshoes]

1 hour ago, 10-Ring said:

If you like the smell of skunks, I've noticed that Ascend Amphitheatre is absolutely eaten to with them during any concert there.

You know, now that you mention it, I noticed the same thing when I went and saw Third Eye Blind and Jimmy Eat World there last month. 

[E4 No More]

I seem to recall learning that diluted skunk oil was used in some perfumes decades ago. 

[Erik88]

@ShaggyRS6, I wish I had advice for you but I'm dealing with this as well. I live in the city limits and my dogs have been sprayed twice this summer. It's horrible. I can't legally shoot them and I have no way of trapping and drowning them as suggested.  I've been on a mission to secure my fenced in backyard and smelt another one of the bastards two nights ago trying to infiltrate. I think they are attracted to the apple tree in my backyard. 

You have no idea how difficult it is to get skunk smell out of Siberian Husky fur.  I'm hoping she learned her lesson after getting a tomato paste bath.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DaveTN]

15 minutes ago, Erik88 said:

@ShaggyRS6, I wish I had advice for you but I'm dealing with this as well. I live in the city limits and my dogs have been sprayed twice this summer. It's horrible. I can't legally shoot them and I have no way of trapping and drowning them as suggested.  I've been on a mission to secure my fenced in backyard and smelt another one of the bastards two nights ago trying to infiltrate. I think they are attracted to the apple tree in my backyard. 

You have no idea how difficult it is to get skunk smell out of Siberian Husky fur.  I'm hoping she learned her lesson after getting a tomato paste bath.

The tomato paste didn’t work very well for me. The mix in this link did. Who keeps a couple of quarts of Hydrogen Peroxide, big boxes of baking soda, and Dawn Dish washing liquid on hand you ask? I do now.

Even that didn’t totally get rid of it. My poor dog.

https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/de-skunking-your-dog

[Erik88]

19 minutes ago, DaveTN said:

The tomato paste didn’t work very well for me. The mix in this link did. Who keeps a couple of quarts of Hydrogen Peroxide, big boxes of baking soda, and Dawn Dish washing liquid on hand you ask? I do now.

Even that didn’t totally get rid of it. My poor dog.

https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/de-skunking-your-dog

Yeah, we tried all the tricks. Tractor Supply actually sells a shampoo made specifically for this and it works pretty well. The first time it happened we took both dogs to Pet Smart to get groomed and they got 95% of the smell out.  It has happened 3 times total, two of those being this summer. I hate skunks. 

[E4 No More]

I had a Rottweiler who was able to get a skunk before the skunk got him. That's pretty amazing outright, but the dog had a blown-out knee when he did it too! I miss that dog!

[MacGyver]

4 hours ago, Erik88 said:

@ShaggyRS6, I wish I had advice for you but I'm dealing with this as well. I live in the city limits and my dogs have been sprayed twice this summer. It's horrible. I can't legally shoot them and I have no way of trapping and drowning them as suggested.  I've been on a mission to secure my fenced in backyard and smelt another one of the bastards two nights ago trying to infiltrate. I think they are attracted to the apple tree in my backyard. 

You have no idea how difficult it is to get skunk smell out of Siberian Husky fur.  I'm hoping she learned her lesson after getting a tomato paste bath.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cable snares in a PVC pipe can work great if you know that you can keep neighborhood cats out.  I expect with Huskies, cats generally stay clear of your yard.

The pros won't drown skunks, either.  They'll trap them, throw a blanket over the trap, and either gas them or simply relocate them.

A guy up the street from me is a wildlife removal guy.  You wouldn't believe the number of skunks in his ex-wife's neighborhood.

[peejman]

1 hour ago, DaveTN said:

The tomato paste didn’t work very well for me. The mix in this link did. Who keeps a couple of quarts of Hydrogen Peroxide, big boxes of baking soda, and Dawn Dish washing liquid on hand you ask? I do now.

Even that didn’t totally get rid of it. My poor dog.

https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/de-skunking-your-dog

Our dog got skunked a couple times over the years. This stuff worked better than anything else, though it bleached her fur somewhat. We had a brown dog instead of a black one for a while after. 

@Erik88 I'd definitely work on that fence first. You can get live animal traps lots of places.  A pellet rifle or a big trash can full of water might be alternatives. 

Skunks are generally pretty docile. If you don't have a dog going bonkers or run around like a looney, they're usually not bad to deal with. My parents have had them get in their garage and they basically just gently shooed them out with no issue. 

Wait until the middle of the day to approach a trap, skunks are largely nocturnal so thats the middle of the night to them. 

[Quavodus]

I've shot 2 or 3 with a .223 and they didn't spray or at least I didn't smell it. Hit right in upper half of head. 

[Grunt67]

I've only had do deal with one lately. Caught it in a live trap, shot it in the top of the head ( in the trap ), with a .22 short. No spray, end of skunk. Carried the trap away from the area, just in case, opened the end of the trap & dumped it out.

[owejia]

Was watching a trapping video on youtube the other day and the trapper catches a few skunks in foot hold and dog proof coon traps. He said a heart/lung shot is the way he dispatches them using a 22 pistol. Said he prefers this over a head shot because in his experience they spray less. So you experience may vary from skunk to skunk. He also extracts the essence to use as trap lure.

Edited August 21, 2019 by owejia

[E4 No More]

I'm seeing more armadillos in the area than skunks.  

I haven't even smelled a skunk in the area this year, come to think of it. 

[owejia]

Don't they compete for the same food source? I have a skunk that we've seen a couple of times this year that is almost white, would be a pretty skin to tan. Would be good to go on the commode lid as a cover. Armadillos root up your yard looking for grubs and other food. Before armadillos,,coyotes and ground hogs were common around here, when we found a den we would pour a coca cola bottle full of gasoline in the vent hole and wait a couple of minutes for the fumes to move through the den then drop  match in the hole and wait for the fumes to ignite and blow out the entrances, and shoot any thing that came out.

[peejman]

29 minutes ago, owejia said:

Don't they compete for the same food source? I

Yes, skunks and armadillos have a very similar diet. Skunks eat more vegetation, but they both eat grubs, worms, insects, etc. 

[Wingshooter]

My parents had one go under their house and die in a far corner of the crawlspace. It smelled like rotting animal AND skunk for weeks. We had to go under there and clean that out!

I trapped the remaining ones around their house using a live trap with peanut butter bait. I threw a small blanket over the cage and loaded them in the truck bed. Then I released them a few miles away near someone else’s house

(not really.... I put them in the woods )

[Bting]

I use  a 12 gauge right to . he head 

[ShaggyRS6]

I thought I would circle back on this! I ended up not shooting them, the reason I did not was because of some of the guidance you fine people provided. What I did was figure out where they were entering the farm, I then got some predator (Coyote) urine and put that down along the entire fence line.  I did that twice.

No more skunks!

Edited August 25, 2019 by ShaggyRS6

[Dirtshooter]

I had to contribute to this, about 5 years ago I had been seeing a skunk in my barn if I went out there at night and turned a light on, had been carrying my Browning Buckmark and had laid it down which was mistake #1 and had went 10-12 feet away and guess what? Ole Peppy LaPew came strolling in from the Browning side of the barn, I retreated onto a pile of firewood and when he got close I did the standing long jump, retrieved the Browning and shot him. That was in my younger days. LOL

 

I might have been out on the road a wee bit too long.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Do ya think???