Skunk surprise

You know, I think skunks are pretty cute.

When I was younger, one of our daycare providers had a pet skunk with the musk glands removed.  I remember it being very friendly and curious.  It was such a novelty and it was awhile before I found out that skunks don’t usually smell so fresh.

We have skunks around our neighborhood.  I’ve smelled them in the past and was always happy they hadn’t found a way into our yard.  We have chickens and skunks are part of the weasel family so I figured they might be a problem but we’ve had chickens for a couple years now without issue.  Until now.

We came back from our last vacation and our cat Joline really stunk like skunk.  We looked up some home remedies and gave her a bath with water and vinegar.  To say she didn’t appreciate it would be putting it mildly, but it did seem to tone down the scent.
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A few days later Jesse went out to get the eggs and found them smashed and skunk hairs in the coop.  Also, there were a couple feathers and a missing hen.  He plugged the hole where he found it had dug under the fence and into the yard, but it got in again so we decided to actually pen the chickens up at night and open the chicken run area to the dogs.  We figured that the dogs would keep the skunk at bay and it’d lose interest.  The first night it seemed to work perfectly.  This morning not so much.

I was woken from a sound sleep because of this nauseating, burning rubber stench.  Both dogs were in the hall by our bedroom and Benny was making these gagging, chuffing sounds like he had something nasty in his mouth he was trying to get out.  I ran to the back door and Luca was somewhat willing to go outside but Benny was not feeling it, it took forever to convince him to come to me and then to go outside.  I put the door retainer down to lock them out and then my phone alarm went off telling me it was time to get up for work.

As much as I’d rather be a stay-at-home mom, I was glad to leave this morning so I wouldn’t have to deal with the dogs.  I did some research at work and found out that the tomato juice wash is a myth, that it doesn’t actually help remove the stink, it just covers it up.  Apparently the only way to really get rid of the smell is to change the chemical composition of the oil.  The more the oil is exposed to oxygen, the more it breaks down.  So they have found that using a compound of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and detergent is the best way to do that.  Interesting, huh?

And as much as I feel for the dogs getting sprayed (and for us because our house is going to stink for a long time) we are still going to let the dogs roam the chicken area at night.  We didn’t lose any hens or eggs last night.  I’m not sure if the skunk was trying to dig under the fence in a different place and the dogs startled it or what, but it didn’t appear to stick around once it sprayed.  Hopefully it will get the hint and take off.  On the other hand, maybe it scared the dogs so badly that they now won’t have anything to do with skunks, “Hey buddy, you want those eggs?  They’re yours!”