I shooed a skunk out of my kitchen this morning....

[mike_c]

Well, late night, early morning-- some time in the wee hours. I'd left my back door ajar for the cats-- one of the advantages of living in a small rural town-- and woke up to use the bathroom. Laying in bed afterward I heard dry kibble catfood crunching in the kitchen. Not an uncommon sound around here, but after a few minutes it struck me as somehow different. My cats usually just eat a few bites at a time, but this was prolonged, and it sounded almost robotic in it's rhythmic regularity. It made me curious about which of the cats was eating so much and with such apparent dedication, so I got up to check. Flipped on the kitchen light and there was mama striper-- I presume it was the same skunk who rears offspring under my house most years.

I said "Hey you-- get out of here!" and clapped my hands. She looked at me, then waddled to the backdoor. She hesitated, like maybe she'd imagined me, and started back toward the kitchen, but I herded her outside, clapping my hands and saying "Shoo!"

So I closed the door-- now that the skunk knows where the catfood bowl is she'll be a pest-- and the cats woke me up all the rest of the night wanting in and out. Fun with wildlife.

[shesemsmom]

1. WOW its a wonder you didn't get sprayed.

and in your house too. Lucky you!! We found a kitten in or house last Tuesday. It is still a wonder how it got in.

[mike_c]

4. well, I'd rather find a kitten...

...but this skunk returns every spring and hangs out with my cats. I don't interact with it, but she has certainly seen me lots of times outside in the evening. My ex-wife and I have watched it compete with a racoon for catfood mistakenly left on the back porch at night several times-- that's funny, even if a bit stinky-- she "squirts" the racoon with little streams of pheromone rather than cutting loose with a full-on spray.

on edit: or did you mean a skunk kitten? They are cute.

[sakabatou]

15. I saw a coon in one of our block's stormdrains

[shesemsmom]

16. nope regular kitten. If it was a skunk I hate to think what

would have happened. I freaked though, we have parrots in the house. One cat scratch can be deadly to birds, as can saliva

[MuseRider]

2. Love it!

Yes, the joys of rural life. We have a bit of that here still but with the gated community of mansions that just took out most of the woods it is less than before. I can't wait for my house on the farm.

Skunks are pretty neat. I feed them at the farm (and everything else that eats what I put out) and if the neighbor forgets to set out his poison they actually live for a while. Mostly they just come and die in my hay barn. My hopes are that once I live there they will all decide not to go over there to take the poison food. They love to grub in my manure pile. Funny creatures.

[Mz Pip]

3. Same problem here

On of my cats is "friends" with the skunk. They eat out of the bowl together.

I've tried putting the catfood away at night. That worked for awhile but now the little critter just comes in during the day.

I'm thinking I will have to start feeding the cats outside but that will just encourage more wild life to move close. We have skunks, raccoons, possum and deer in our yard.

If you come up with a solution to this, please let me know.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[RebelOne]

5. Actually I would like to have that problem.

I think it would be pretty cool to have all that wildlife in my yard. I only have lots of squirrels. And I think there is a possum family living under my house.

[Redstone]

10. Want wildlife? Come visit us.

We have skunks, coons, turkeys, eagles (bald and ospreys), foxes, coyotes, deer, rabbits, possums, ducks...

And we live in town! The reason we have all these critters is that there's a strip of forest that runs from the Connecticut River marshlands to our backyard, and there's a swamp on the other side of the house. So our yard is a critter highway.

Redstone

[mike_c]

7. I stopped feeding them outside for just that reason....

This skunk dens under my house, and aside from the musky odor wafting into my bedroom at night-- her entrance is right under the window-- she's not usually a problem. She and the cats get along just fine. No one has ever been sprayed, although she will squirt a bit when one of the local racoons comes around. I really don't think there is a solution beyond live-trapping her and transporting her far away. It's quite likely that another skunk would simply move in, and besides, she's not really much of a problem-- certainly not enough to warrant trapping.

I would rather she stayed out of my kitchen, however!

[SoDesuKa]

6. No Cat Food at Night

The skunk comes in for the cat food, not to look around. Until the skunk learns this is a wasted trip, it will keep coming back to feed. Remove the cat food. The cats won't like it but they won't starve. Your security from wild animals is more important than their convenience.

[mike_c]

8. I'll just close the door....

I stopped feeding the cats outside years ago for that very reason.

[Mz Pip]

11. My cats get all nervous

when I put their food bowl away. Then they get on the bed and stare at me at 6:30 in the morning wanting to be fed.

Our little striped friend will just come into the kitchen and get under the sink into the garbage.

These daytime visits will be a problem, though. The cats have to eat sometime.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[Left Is Write]

9. Yikes. It's a good thing she didn't spray you!

[rasputin1952]

12. That is pretty cool...glad you didn't get sprayed, especially in

the house!!!!

As an aside....skunks have rabies quite often. They are a major vector, as are bats. One that is advanced in rabies would not be docile, nor eating/drinking...but if they bit a cat or a dog, or a person of course...there could be some serious trouble. Justa heads up for all of us nature lovers...:D

[mike_c]

13. yes, and rabies is endemic in skunks in many areas...

...as well as in racoon populations. That was a major concern when I and my cats first began to have regular contact with the local wild critters. The cats are immunized, of course, but the primary reason I stopped feeding them outdoors was to limit interactions with the skunks and racoons, at least to some degree. I don't really know that there's much more I can do, except be watchful for anomalous behavior such as mid-day activity and the like. Unfortunately, both skunks and racoons are quite adaptable and can easily display "unusual" behavior in response to the human influence on their environments.

[RPM]

14. scary

:scared:

[evlbstrd]

17. Cool skunk story.

My family got together at my mom's trailer in the Ozarks. There were fifteen of us in there. On the morning after a heavy night of partying, she let her little poodle dog out, who promptly attacked a skunk and got thoroughly sprayed.
Of course, he came running back inside and started dashing from one end of the trailer to the other. That woke us all up.
So, we tried to get cleaned up as well as we could (we had to go back up north on this morning), and left.
But we stopped at a Village Inn near Springfield.
We were promptly seated, and served very quickly.

And Mom preferred the term "mobile home."

[henslee]

18. my friend had a skunk living under their house for years. Used to

come in the kitchen too. If they don't feel threatened, they don't spray.