Why does it have to be a skunk?
 

Something is living in my garage.
Definitely bigger than a mouse, because all the traps are tripping without catching anything.
Dogs going crazy, and smell like a skunk, but stupid me never connected the dots.
Thinking possum or raccoon, bought a trap.
Went out tonight to put some peanut butter covered dog food in the trap, and a skunk was in the dog food bowl!!
So after I screamed like a 12 yo girl, I tried to chase it away.
It finally left, then I removed the dog food bowl and replaced it with the trap filled with dog food.
Hopefully catch it tonight, then catch and release on my neighbors yard.

Don't be crazy. Set the trap outside the garage.

Good luck with that.

I would do a bit more research. I gotta think you touch the cage, freak it out and the big release comes. Your garage and house reeks for months.

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When I lived in the backwoods, neighbors trapped them...and everything else for their pelt. They would kill them (without getting sprayed) with a stick that had a very sharp nail on the end. Somehow got the stick in the trap slowly and gently and then stabbed them behind the ear into the skull with the pointy end.

The best way to trap a skunk for release is to use a trap made specifically for one (A no-spray type trap). We made ours out of wood..but most you buy are metal. They are not the same as the wire cage types used for other varmits. They have several versions on Amazon for about $50 each.

Keep the trap covered with an old towel or blanket. It will help calm the stinker.

We have a stinker living behind our garage. I almost walked into him one night while watering. I didn't scream, but I sure as hell hightailed it in the other direction.

We had a skunk event last night. Our male dachshund trapped on behind the trash can. The dog got a face full of spray. I grabbed the stinky dog, and brought him into the laundry room for a bath in hydrogen peroxide, banking soda, and dog shampoo. He smells much better but a little stink if you sniff his face.
The skunk left on his own. I need to get a trap and get rid of him if he comes back.

I saw the first one I have seen on my current property last week...about 2 acres away at the edge of the mowed area. A wiff of skunk is in the air tonight...so I guess someone/something crossed its path. Glad it was not me.

I hope you rethink this plan before it is too late. You are going to smell real bad for a long time if you trap the skunk and then approach it while it is trapped. Either trap it and shoot it, or call the Department of Natural Resources to come and deal with it (free) or a wildlife control company ($$$). They'll shoot it with a poison dart and dispose of the body.

make sure you have plenty of canned peeled tomatoes before you do anything.
Cause rubbing them all over in the shower is going to reduce the stink.. for the most part...

Glen's mixture in post 10 is da bomb for skunk spray. We used to use it a lot for our blind husky.
A trap for skunks has a low top so they can't raise their tail to spray.

Best
Les

Why does this remind me of vash ;)?

Rarely see/smell skunks here anymore....they went west....evidently.

So trapped tripped last night but no skunk.
Tonight trap setup gets improved.
All the critters are here for the dog food.
Going to bring it inside at night from now on.
Also usually leave garage open from Friday night to Monday morning.
That's stopping also, going to close up every night.
And i'm not going to kill the skunk, I'm going to give it to my neighbor. :D

This is a myth

Baking soda, peroxide and dish soap is what you want.

Screaming because of a critter?

Anyway, I had a baby skunk that somehow lost it's mother. Sort of hard to verify but no mother ever came poking around looking for her offspring. I and the in-laws raised it into an adult when we decided that it was a bit much for a small urban yard, so we had some friends (and friends of animals) up in Santa Rosa adopt "Shalimar."

It lived in or near the chicken coup until one day it wandered off to the woods. Every day the skunk would come back into the compound for a fresh egg. He/she liked to take the egg and place if between the front paws and 'hike' it backwards into any object that would break the shell. Then it was feast time — egg all over the face.

Eventually the skunk came by less and less until sightings became rare. I guess it assimilated to life in the wild in spite of its raising by humans. All this and it never sprayed anyone. We didn't handle it but it was super friendly and not afraid of humans (well familiar ones anyway) and would approach us and hang out for awhile. That is until egg time.

Sprinkle moth balls or moth flakes around, they don't like the smell and will leave. Not sure if this is the case everywhere but in New Jersey it is illegal to kill/trap a skunk. Don't know why but it is. We once had a skunk get under our house. Called animal control who said they can not help us as they were not permitted to trap skunks. The person suggested getting a few boxes of moth balls/flakes. Skunks, raccoons, Possums, etc. don't like the smell and will eave. It worked. Had to do it again not to long ago when a plumber didn't properly secure the crawl space door and a possum family moved in.

I got it!!
It's in the trap, which is wrapped in an old towel.
Now what?
Not sure how to open the trap without getting hit.
Heading to the edge of the state park to release.
Hopefully all goes well!!

1. See if you can make a hook out of a coat hanger that can lift the door.
2. Set up camera and set to record.
3. Pray. Multiple times
4. Curse loudly, canceling out prayers
5. Throw away clothes after he sprays
6. Promise yourself to never do anything so stupid again.



Good luck!

Is there a lake at that state park?

Well?

Sleeping outside wif da dawgs tonight?

Good boy :)!

The release was pretty uneventful.
I was wearing full body armour.
Couldn't open the door and run away because it was standing on the release plate.
So I held open the door and shook the cage to dump it out.
As soon as it hit the ground it took off one way and me the other.
Bye bye stinky!!

I feel cheated with this thread and the end result.

Starting to think you've been BS'ing us and all you had was just some stray house cat with racing stripes and a bad attitude.

Basically it was a cry for attention wasn't it?

https://e.snmc.io/i/300/w/9afca9617d...7957d4/4298043

Damn. Not the result I was hoping for.... :)

They are pretty much pacifists. It takes quite a bit to scare them enough to spray.

Skunks are a minor problem in this town. There is a woman that traps and relocates skunks for $25 each. She has an ad in the local paper. I had to have four removed a few years ago. I was expecting some 6' 2" woman from the back country, but she turned out to be little and quite cute. With interesting perfume...

Skunk smell is um, well different. Almost anyone living in the USA has smelled the horrible stink of a dead skunk in the road. It reeks and the stink can stay in the car for a few miles.

When our dachshund was sprayed right in his face, Thursday night for the second time in the last few months, I knew I had to grab him to get him to leave the skunk alone so it would leave, but even more important, not let him run inside and rub his face on the carpet to wipe off some skunk spray.

There are few joys greater than holding a freshly sprayed, 15 pound dog close. The funny thing is for sure the skunk stinks, but it is not that horrible overwhelming stink like a dead one in the road. I presume my sense of smell gets overwhelmed and my brain processes it as a woody smell, like rotten wood, or mushrooms. Not really all that bad. In fact the first time we had a skunk encounter we both sniffed the dog trying to figure out if he had been smelled, and had to think about it. He smelled bad for sure.

The recipe is the at the top of a Google search for Skunk smell off of a dog.
¼ cup of baking soda.
1-2 teaspoons of mild dishwashing detergent like Ivory Snow.
1 quart of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide solution.
Mix in a bucket and use immediately.
Work the foaming mixture well into the coat.
Leave on for five minutes.
Rinse with warm water.
Follow with dog shampoo if desired.

We keep a fresh bottle of H2O2 on hand, and baking soda and soap are always around. The good news is all the ingredients are CHEAP, and it works.

We washed our clothes that night, light a scented candle and just live with the slight stink of skunk overnight in your sinus. In the morning, another shower, and maybe some scented hand lotion, and by afternoon, the house smells skunk free.

I figured we'd smell it over the Internet too....I want my $ back!

Driving down a country road and smelling skunk, 999 times out of 1000, it's almost a sweet smell, and not really that unpleasant. I assume it was either far off the road or something, and I've always wondered what the big deal was. Once I drove past (didn't see it) what must have been something fresh and very close to the road. In that sort of high concentration, I get it, it's really horrible.

Growing up around here,they were called"Polecats" They left their scent on the roads a lot!!:D

OK this a good time for a tangent? I have groundhogs moving in. I don't want to shoot them but I will if I must. Any advice other than ammonia trays?

Get some skunks - they will run off the groundhogs. If no skunks are available, look for NJ Devils players. They stink almost as badly. ;)

Yep...polecats....just haven't smelt one....or been in Jersey lately :)

Call in the Turtle Man! Live Action!!

Juicy Fruit gum. Don't touch it, just unwrap using the wrapper to place it in the entrance to the hole. My dad has been doing this and finding dead ground piggies.

There seem to be a lot of skunks in one particular area of Los Angeles, the Los Feliz/Silverlake neighborhood. It’s a very frequent smell and maybe it’s an acquired thing but I really don’t mind it. As someone else said, though, it’s probably because it’s muted...in the distance. :cool:

Must be a city thing...when the pleasant aroma of a stinkin' polecat seem rather benign...you got any paper mills nearby ;)?

I'm one of the lucky ones. Ever since I was a kid I haven't been able to smell skunk. On road trips everyone holding their nose complaining about a skunk and I would breathe in as big of a breath as I could take and nothing. To this day I have never smelled what a skunk smells like.

Or feed lots. I lived in Hereford, TX for a couple of years. Over a half million cattle within 10 miles.

"Smell that Hereford money!"

Jack Russel Terrier maybe

Bubble gum works too, or so my sister tells me. If you have a cougar, I think you can call the county or game wardens.

I don’t remember the name of the campground near lake Fontana in N.C., but sitting around the fire each night, a family of skunks would sneak up to you and wander around. If you had bare feet, they’d lick your toes.

The ranger had told us about them and said they’d only be a problem if you *****ed with them.