Become a better gardener! Discover our new Almanac Garden Planner features for 2024. It’s easy, fun, and free to try!
How to Keep Skunks Out of the Garden
ADVERTISEMENT
From your article:
Under a skunk’s tail are two pouches equipped with a pair of ducts that remain hidden in peacetime but quickly expose themselves when danger threatens. Their foul ammunition is a golden-yellow liquid whose active ingredient is the sulfide mercaptan. Each of the two pouches contains enough ammunition for six rounds. After the supply is exhausted, a week is required to replenish it. This spray means skunk creatures are feared by nearly all animals, including most of mankind.
This statement is incorrect "skunk creatures are feared by nearly all animals", my dog lives to chase them!!! Unfortunately he is a house dog who gets a lot of baths!!
When living in Alton NH I had a long 300 foot driveway. One pitch black night I walked the driveway. I sensed something was sharing the driveway with me. Got about 3 feet from a striped animal, there wasn’t any smell but knew what it was. Retreated rather quickly and apparently it didn’t feel threatened, so we both went on our merry ways.
When stationed in the Air Force in OK & TX a few years the natives called them Polecats. But a Polecat is like a weasel, but that was called a skunk. The animals stunk like skunks and looked like them. Geographical naming.
Recently, a TV infomercial promoting an aerosol spray that eliminates many odors (some quite bad) quickly. Might be something to try for Skunk on yourself or animals. Do a search.
Noted some commenters said to use Tomato Juice and some commenters said it didn’t work. I side with those that said it doesn’t work. A better use for Tomato Juice (or Clamato Juice) is to mix it with Vodka on ice and read about Skunks on the OFA articles.
You can tell when spring is here. Many roads are known as Flat Skunk highway. Stinks as you drive along.
Bake Cinnamon Sticks for a couple hours at 250 degrees.
I can't for the life of me figure why skunks are an issue at all. I have a huge garden and there are lots of little holes, but they have never damaged any of my plants. As for the lawn, the grass is, as far as I'm concerned, a shameful thing to care about. It costs money and resources to keep perfect, and cutting it is usually with a gas mower, blower, and edger--hideously pollutant, but also creates a miniature Armageddon for all the creatures chopped up by the blades, not to mention noisy as hell. You use valuable water on a plant that provides no sustenance, and most people don't even spend much time in their yards. And then you begrudge skunks and other animals the right to dig for food in order to protect that wasteful patch of green.
I share my yard with the wildlife, and the skunks and I just mozy about the yard in the evening, doing our own thing. The raccoons are harder to adjust to, but with gentle tactics, we've figured it out. They don't pay me much mind. If you have a dog, keep in mind that the wildlife has more natural right to hang out than your dog does. And as we keep having children and development seems endless, our yards are the only places they can live in. Plant natives that provide food. Leave out fresh water. Keep your yard wild with places to burrow. Protect them or they will be gone.
TOTALLLY agree with you, Tricia. I'm of like mind. They're no problem at all, and if we all just lived and let live, everyone would be better off.
I've run into skunks a few times - once with a mamma and 6-7 babies. Never had a problem. If they start bouncing on forepaws, I back away. I had relatives who kept skunks and raccoons as pets. Skunks seemed much friendlier. Don't know from experience because I've never been sprayed, but always told that a bath with tomato sauce was the best way to get rid of the smell.
I purchased Skunk Off from the Vet. I dabbed it with a cotton ball on my dog where he got sprayed and he could come into the house immediately. The only time you smelled it after that was when he got wet. I always make sure I have a bottle at home and one at the cottage. We had tried all the recommended ways but that was the only thing that worked.
OMG every other night the skunk comes. It's four a.m. and the while house smells of skunk. Something has to be done. I'm burning candle in bedroom trying to sleep. The smell gets into my CPap machine and it's sticking. The smell is so bad it smells as if it's in the bed with me. Anyone else have skunks this bad? HELP!
We have the SAME problem!! And my CPAP smells so awful!!
We have skunks living under the house and they keep smelling of spray or spraying and sometimes fighting. I've spent a lot of money on incense this winter. I've got some oranges so I'll leave the peels around the hole where they go under. I'm just wondering if there's a way I can put light right into the hole that goes under the house. Apparently it's a real problem in town and they keep trapping them and can't make a dent in the problem. I also have a malamute with a very thick coat and thankfully he hasn't had a run in with them yet but that's just dumb luck.