I’m leaning towards stay.
I’m growing trees, primarily, with a good stack of aronia, elderberry, and currants. Not commercially, and will produce more that I can use.
A skunk has taken up residence in the orchard. Frequent but tolerable pungency. Lots of evidence it’s digging up grubs. One even took a dump in a small gopher hole (bless its heart!)
From what I’ve read, they’re not climbers, so I shouldn’t need to worry about loss there.
Thoughts?
I would want to be sure all my pets were current on their rabies shots is all I think of right off the bat.
my dogs have a fenced in area when they aren’t in the yard with me. skunks are nocturnal. i say let them be. they take care of your lawn killing grubs for you and don’t bother anything. i used to live trap and relocate but we have so many here it was not doing any good. make sure that pets also have flea treatments as they carry lots of fleas.
I would get rid of it. Skunks are a horrid nuisance when they overpopulate. How many hours do you want to sit and watch the skunk eat your fruit during the harvest season? Watching is all you will be doing, because startling it will make it spray. Shooting it could cause spray. It will protect its food source. Only a matter of time before the opposite gender catches a whiff.
And stocking up on buckets of tomato juice and vinegar!
Anybody know what skunk hides are worth for fur?
The hides are worth somewhere in the neighborhood of nothing to a few bucks, if put up correctly. The entire fur market is, and has been for almost a decade, in the toilet. Very few countries using fur, and the ones that are buying are very selective of what they buy.
i have a family of 4, a mother and 3 kits living under my shed. so far they havent touched anything other than grubs. my veggies are all in raised beds so that might be why they haven’t touched them. i have strawberries in ground and they haven’t touched them in the last 5 yrs.
Maybe they get nasty when they feed on people’s garbage. People and dogs got skunked pretty commonly growing up. The tomato juice does not fully work. Years later, you can smell skunk in their sweat.
In my experience skunks don’t go for fruit on the trees but they will eat fruit that drops on the ground.
I’ve decided… for now, they are welcome.
Sorry to say over time skunks have bitten heads off and killed multiple chickens in my yard. When I see them coming they are goners. My tender hearted neighbor asked us to do a catch and release of one in his yard and relocate it. His wife just shook her head at him.(as did we in disbelief)
At my house they Go.
You never know when you might run right into one and get sprayed… take the trash out after dark… and boom there he is. Go get something g from my garden shed and boom…
We have friends at Church… who left their garage door open a while one evening late… and their little house dog found a skunk in their garage and got a full load… then the dog ran back in the house and started rubbing the carpet, couch, chairs, drapes… trying to get the smell off… cost them a small fortune to get their home back to livable status.
12 ga, hi brass 6 shot…
Use a pitch fork to remove somewhere way down wind of home or orxhard.
TNHunter
Ps… our friends from Church… had seen the skunk several times in their yard… around the house… but did nothing.
Skunks raid eggs from gamebird and ground nesting songbird nests. They are rabies carriers. Around here…they go
I have used my 17 hmr a few times on skunks… and it will sure take them out… but a skunk will often still spray even if you make a great head shot.
I have had best luck with my 12 ga shotgun with 6 shot… from about 15 yards… pretty much total anihalition and no spray.
Even if no spray will still smell bad… best to have them down wind of home b4 taking them out. At night with a good flashlight… you can usually encourage them to go off in a downwind location… approach them from up wind slowly don’t approach too fast or will spook and run off. If you go slow… they will often just slowly leave… and you can follow slowly… until you get far enough down wind… then take care of it.
My neighbor usually text me after a shotgun blast at 9pm… and I say… one less skunk in the neighborhood.
TNHunter
They eat honeybees…so I’ve not actually killed any skunks since I sold my bees many years ago now.
I think we’d get along quite well as neighbors
I didn’t know they ate honeybees. Just one more good reason to limit their population
i didn’t know about them eating honeybees either. They are supposed to eat the japanese beetle which is the only reason i would tolerate one. Thankfully i haven’t seen any in my yard and the japanese beetle isn’t an issue here (at least not yet).
Back in NE, they were horrible. My 3 yr old weeping willow would get so covered in them you could barely see the tree. Shake it and it just rained beetles on you. Most of my fruit trees suffered as well (regretfully i had to keep spraying them with seven), but somehow the roses were left alone. Easily the worst pest i have encountered thus far.