Skunk in my backyard

[AmooseReally]

Yesterday I saw a Baby Skunk with its mom roaming around my backyard, and what's worse my chicks we're outside I'm so thankful to God that nothing happened to them. I want that Skunk out what can I do? Animal control is 200 to 600 dollars here and I'm not too sure about paying that much just to get rid of a baby Skunk and it's mom. Is there any alternatives of getting rid of them?

 

[nuthatched]

Making sure your run is dig proof and their coop is secure is all you need. Not a big deal.

 

[Captain13]

Lemon and orange peel worked for me. I had a skunk digging around the coop and I read they don’t like citrus fruit smell.

Attached is a link with other suggestions

https://www.almanac.com/pest/skunks

 

[The Moonshiner]

@KayisforKale any skunk capturing tips?

 

[Kay-T-Hammer]

Yesterday I saw a Baby Skunk with its mom roaming around my backyard, and what's worse my chicks we're outside I'm so thankful to God that nothing happened to them. I want that Skunk out what can I do? Animal control is 200 to 600 dollars here and I'm not too sure about paying that much just to get rid of a baby Skunk and it's mom. Is there any alternatives of getting rid of them?

I would check to see if they are hanging around, or were they using your property as a throughway? I just recently had to remove a skunk that had been living in my run with my chickens for god knows how long. My situation was different, as I only had to trap and release on my own property. To rehome a skunk to any other area here is illegal, as is killing them.

I have heard that skunks do not regularly attack full grown chickens that are awake, alert, and rather large; unless they are hungry, of course. I do not know how true that is, so please take that with a pound of salt. Like I had mentioned, my skunk (he is now practically a family member, and we have named him Bailey) lived in my run alongside my chickens for at least 3 months. I had seen his poop in there for that long, anyway but I had misidentified it at first, and he had never touched any of my chickens, he only ate their food. He is a regular visitor now, and I make sure that there is plenty of food left out near our woods so that if he does happen to get back in with the chickens, at least he will have a full belly when he does and will not risk fighting my roosters.

My roosters have worked fairly well as a deterrent for most of the smaller predators, though many others on this site will disagree with their use in that area. Are you allowed/willing to keep a relatively large rooster?

 

[Debbie292d]

This morning we had one. Stella chased it off.

 

[Debbie292d]

I would check to see if they are hanging around, or were they using your property as a throughway? I just recently had to remove a skunk that had been living in my run with my chickens for god knows how long. My situation was different, as I only had to trap and release on my own property. To rehome a skunk to any other area here is illegal, as is killing them.

I have heard that skunks do not regularly attack full grown chickens that are awake, alert, and rather large; unless they are hungry, of course. I do not know how true that is, so please take that with a pound of salt. Like I had mentioned, my skunk (he is now practically a family member, and we have named him Bailey) lived in my run alongside my chickens for at least 3 months. I had seen his poop in there for that long, anyway but I had misidentified it at first, and he had never touched any of my chickens, he only ate their food. He is a regular visitor now, and I make sure that there is plenty of food left out near our woods so that if he does happen to get back in with the chickens, at least he will have a full belly when he does and will not risk fighting my roosters.

My roosters have worked fairly well as a deterrent for most of the smaller predators, though many others on this site will disagree with their use in that area. Are you allowed/willing to keep a relatively large rooster?

I love this!

I may be wrong but I believe people are against roosters for rodent patrol is because they don't want people assuming a rooster will be the answer, as sometimes they aren't. In our case, it's two dogs and now a cat (see post below). I have a great rooster, but he keeps the ladies safe if he sees a hawk, which can't come down here anyway (guy wires).

I've seen him go stand behind the dogs when they go off about something in the woods behind us. I didn't get a picture but that would have been cute! I'm not sure what he was doing, backing up the dogs?

 

[lagrange chicks]

If the skunk was out in the day light it could be rabid, skunks don't move around in the daylight. If you see it in the day time again I would call your county animal control, not good for pets or humans to be around sick skunks.

 

[AmooseReally]

Wasn't in the daylight, I think this skunk is normal seeing by it's behavior. I have blocked out every single place a skunk could try and hide I've only seen it once again ever since and it seems it doesn't like my area anymore because I got rid of all sources of food it was looking for, primarily my chicken eggs which good thing it hadn't touched any of the eggs my 18 week old barred rock hen had just started laying. I've completely secured the coop and started closing my chickens at 6PM instead of closer to night. Thank you all for your advice!

 

[Ponypoor]

I love this!

I may be wrong but I believe people are against roosters for rodent patrol is because they don't want people assuming a rooster will be the answer, as sometimes they aren't. In our case, it's two dogs and now a cat (see post below). I have a great rooster, but he keeps the ladies safe if he sees a hawk, which can't come down here anyway (guy wires).

I've seen him go stand behind the dogs when they go off about something in the woods behind us. I didn't get a picture but that would have been cute! I'm not sure what he was doing, backing up the dogs?

Making sure they did the job and didn’t run away??