We have adorable baby skunks living on our property!

[skygazer]

I'm going to try to take some pictures tonight - they are the cutest things! Their mom brings them to forage around under the birdfeeders int he evening - last night, hubby and I walked up to watch them for a bit. There are seven of them, they are the most adorable things you ever saw. Little pointed noses and small furry feet and beautiful big bushy tails. They're not really shy in the least (neither is mom - she's lived her for a couple of years and knows we won't bother her) so they don't mind us watching them.

Last night, four of them caught sight of us and began frolicking down the path toward us! We just stood there and they came right up to us, gazed up for a moment, then approached and began nibbling on the toes of my slippers! Deciding they were not good skunk food, they bounced back to the bird feeder - it was so cute. I would have loved to just picked one up and cuddled it (probably not a good idea) - they look Soooooo soft.

I'll try to post pics soon.

[sam sarrha]

1. They carry rabies and you will regret them being on your property...

call animal control...

[ET Awful]

5. Mmmmhmm, that's like saying humans carry AIDS, you'll regret them

being on your property, call homeland security.

Presuming that all of a species carries a disease is ridiculous. Small mammals die quickly from rabies, if they had rabies, they wouldn't live long.

May I suggest: http://www.aspenskunk.org/myths.htm

http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/ar-skunks.html

For a skunk or any other creature to have rabies, it must first be exposed to rabies. A rabid animal exhibits unusual behavior and would not be relaxed around humans, but would more likely be aggressive.

[Lauri16]

9. It's very easy to spot a rabid skunk

Skunks, as a rule, aren't aggressive. A rabid skunk is very aggressive. It will charge at anything that moves.

[skygazer]

10. Honey, I've been around varmints all my life

Rabies is not heavily prevalent in my neck of the woods (I used to live in Vermont where it is far more of a problem) and I'm well aware of the risks involved with having wild critters around. I live in the woods, not in some suburban nightmare - in other words, I live in THEIR world.

[Lauri16]

2. I love watching the skunks at the feeders!

We sit outside and watch them all the time. They come up to the patio and sniff around our chairs, then they go on their merry way. As long as you don't make any fast moves, they won't do anything. They are so adorable!!:)

[jilln]

3. I saw one once!!!

And I agree with you 100%, they are probably the cutest baby animal I have ever seen, it was amazing. Do post pictures if you get some!

[KansDem]

4. I bet they're adorable little stinkers!

;)

[ET Awful]

6. How wonderful :). Do get pictures when you can.

Skunks are really neat animals. They are very curious and very playful :)

[MuseRider]

7. I love the skunks!

One lives in my hay barn so I have to be very careful when I open it up so as not to startle it.

I have never had that close an encounter. Pretty cool. Pictures would be awesome.

[leftofthedial]

8. wait until the stink starts evey night

they are cute

but peeyeeeeeeeew!

[skygazer]

12. Nah, not stinky

Skunks only spray when frightened or injured. We had five babies last year and mom has lived here for at least a couple of years. They're actually very clean and interesting animals. Usually when you smell one, it's because the poor thing's been hit by a car. :(

[ET Awful]

14. Yup, or because it was being threatened by another animal.

They aren't that bad in normal circumstances. Hell, my old roommate let off more stench than a calm skunk :).

[Lauri16]

15. They warn you when they're going to spray

That is the most adorable thing. They slam their front paws on the ground. I saw a dog that got too close to a skunk almost get sprayed, but when the skunk started pounding the ground, the dog took off.

[ET Awful]

17. Hehehe, the dog had probably been sprayed before :)

And learned his lesson :)

[leftofthedial]

16. so you'e sure there are no feral cats, raccoons, foxes, other skunks

stray pets, etc. around to incite the little buggers.

Nightly stench has been a part of our spring-to-fall skunk experience for two years now.

[skygazer]

18. There are tons of raccoons

deer, and several cats belonging to our neighbors, as well as Oops, our cat. All the critters around her are used to each other and the skunks and cats will often be found hanging out in the same areas without blinking an eye. Ditto the raccons, who regularly come up on our deck and peer in the windows (very cute). I've seen Oops and two or three raccoons all together on the deck and they don't bother each other at all. Every once in a blue moon, we smell skunk but they seem to live somewhat removed from all the houses, in an area with a bunch of sheds and barns so the smell isn't very strong. I actually enjoy the smell of skunk at a distance - it's kind of fresh (and reminds me of good green bud).

No, no problems.

[ET Awful]

19. Can I come live at your house?

It sounds so pleasant with all the critters around :) n/t

[skygazer]

26. It really is beautiful

We're surrounded by trees, Redwoods in the front and oak, pine and madrone to the sides and rear. There's a huge Spruce by the landlord's house that must be 150 feet high and huge in girth.

The deer wander about - I can look out the window from my computer and see them right there often. This morning when I went to work, there were two does and three fawns in the driveway.

This is my deck -



and this is the view outside my front door up toward the Redwoods -

[ET Awful]

28. Gorgeous! I love it :)

When can I move in? :evilgrin:

[skygazer]

29. Well, it will take me about six months to hoe out the spare room!

Unless you don't mind sleeping with 10 large boxes of books and about 70 bottles of wine.

[ET Awful]

30. Just give me a corkscrew and a reading lamp :) n/t

[skygazer]

32. LOL

:rofl:

[China_cat]

20. Try putting out some cat food for them

We've found they enjoy Meow Mix and any of the fishy flavors of kibble. Not a lot, but a little now and then for a treat.

Oh, and that will also attract tons of bluejays.

[skygazer]

23. Absolutely not!!!

When I first moved in, hubby was feeding raccoons and it was just a zoo - they'd bring all their friends, it attracted the blue jays who are noisy and quarrelsome and pooped all over the deck.....

No, I don't feed wild critters (the bird feeders are my landlords') - I love to watch them but I don't want to make them dependent and I don't want to make pets out of them. :hi:

[China_cat]

39. I wasn't talking about a bowlful every day

I was talking about a handful, widely scattered, once a month. Something that would be a TREAT, not a diet.

[leftofthedial]

27. it smells too much like someone just opened a Heineken to me

:-)

[wideopen]

35. Or any beer in a green bottle n/t

[wideopen]

22. Every night between 11 and 1am

I have one that walks through the backyard. I always get the dog in before then, she should know better than to mess w/him but I'm not taking any chances. Last time she got sprayed it took two weeks before she could come back in the house.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

11. Geez that sounds so cool!

I've have baby raccoons and oppossums hang out at my house, but never skunks. I think they are great creatures.

PIX!

[ET Awful]

13. Raccoons are just as fun :) I love those little bandits.

I don't think I've ever seen a family of oppossums though :).

[Hell Hath No Fury]

24. I have had familes of both critters come in the house...

for a little nosh from the cat feeder. The raccoons were ridiculously cute -- I loved the sounds they made when talking to each other. The oppossums were cute but a little stinky. I saw they when they were just finished with riding on Mom's back.

[redqueen]

21. Awwww... you lucky!

I think the wild ones are high-risk for rabies, but they do make good pets (once you remove the stink gland, that is).

Can't wait to see the pics... thanks! :hi:

[LynneSin]

25. I miss the smell of skunk

Well, not skunk up close but when I could smell one in a distance. I haven't smelled one in ages and I hate to say it, I kinda miss it.

I grew up in rural PA and at nights you could smell one in the distance. My parents would run the AC at night so either I had to get use to the smell or sleep with the windows closed. After awhile it was something normal.

I would also get skunk smells when I lived in suburban philly and even one time when I got home I startled a skunk and almost got sprayed (he was right outside of my apartment where I had put some cat food out for a cat that lived at our building.

But now I live in urban Wilmington - no skunk smell :cry:

I mean, I wouldn't want to get sprayed by one but after smelling these things for so long you got use to the fainter smell of one

[Kraklen]

31. We used to have a big fat one living on our property.

Every now and then he (?) would come around while I was mowing the lawn and waddle after my riding lawnmower.

Oddest thing.

[skygazer]

34. How funny!

The mower wasn't black and white, was it? Maybe he was like Pepe le Phew.

[Shakespeare]

33. A poem for you! Skunk Hour, by Robert Lowell

One of my favorites:

Nautilus Island's hermit
heiress still lives through winter in her Spartan cottage;
her sheep still graze above the sea.
Her son's a bishop. Her farmer
is first selectman in our village,
she's in her dotage.

Thirsting for
the hierarchic privacy
of Queen Victoria's century,
she buys up all
the eyesores facing her shore,
and lets them fall.

The season's ill--
we've lost our summer millionaire,
who seemed to leap from an L. L. Bean
catalogue. His nine-knot yawl
was auctioned off to lobstermen.
A red fox stain covers Blue Hill.

And now our fairy
decorator brightens his shop for fall,
his fishnet's filled with orange cork,
orange, his cobbler's bench and awl,
there is no money in his work,
he'd rather marry.

One dark night,
my Tudor Ford climbed the hill's skull,
I watched for love-cars. Lights turned down,
they lay together, hull to hull,
where the graveyard shelves on the town. . . .
My mind's not right.

A car radio bleats,
'Love, O careless Love . . . .' I hear
my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell,
as if my hand were at its throat . . . .
I myself am hell,
nobody's here--

only skunks, that search
in the moonlight for a bite to eat.
They march on their soles up Main Street:
white stripes, moonstruck eyes' red fire
under the chalk-dry and spar spire
of the Trinitarian Church.

I stand on top
of our back steps and breathe the rich air--
a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the
garbage pail
She jabs her wedge-head in a cup
of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail,
and will not scare.

[skygazer]

36. Oooh, I like that

I can see it all, very evocative. Thanks! :hi:

[ElsewheresDaughter]

37. when a mother skunk weans her babies she sprays them

we had a family of skunks living under out summer cabin and to wean them she sprayed them every few seconds....god it was awful!

[maveric]

38. We had a family of skunks living under my house for years.

Some were the size of small dogs. We didnt bother them and they never sprayed under the house.