THE SKUNK FAMILY

One evening, a couple of weeks ago, I was looking out the kitchen french door. There was a family of skunks!  I was so excited!  Yes, excited as in happy.  We put dry cat food out every night for the critters that come by.  This evening it was a skunk mom and her three little babies enjoying the food.

The mom reminded me of many moms I've seen. Her tail dragging on the ground, while the kids were jumping, playing, nipping and bumping each other.  The mom skunk settled down and ate while the kids followed suit, temporarily. They began hip bumping each other to get to the food. The food was spaced out so each could partake, but kids will be kids and each tried to push the other out of the way.  The kids eat and walk with their tails straight up in alert/warning stance.

Each night since, I have watched for the skunk family.  Finally I got the bright idea of trying my phone camera to video the kids.  I have three videos to share with you.  There is one baby skunk I call Fearless.  The little tyke does not realize how small and vulnerable it is. Many nights I see Fearless out on his own. 

Fearless does not give up too easily when it comes to food.  I watched it one night standing next to a full grown raccoon eating cat food. These two were actually touching each other, not giving an inch, eating cat food. I thought for sure the raccoon would either push Fearless out of the way or get sprayed. Neither happened. Little Fearless decided to come to the porch and eat from the bowl alone.

This has been so entertaining for me and frustrating for my dogs and cats. They sit lined up in front of the kitchen door watching the skunks, raccoons and possums enjoy the cat food.

Why in the world would we feed these animals??? I know that is what you are thinking. Easy answer: We enjoy watching them.  We enjoy that they bring their little ones to eat too.  They don't live long out here, so we try to help out with food.   Skunks kill snakes, scorpions (which we have here), they kill mice/rats and eat bugs. Cheap pest control.  Will they spray you?  You betcha!   Skunks will warn you, they will give you ample opportunity to get away, but if you do not leave and they feel too threatened by your presence, they will spray you!  How do they warn you? They slap both front paws on the ground and growl/hiss at you. You will get that maybe three times, if you haven't gotten the clue by then....you get sprayed. I was coming in just after sunset one evening and there was a skunk eating. He warned me with a hiss growl.  I told him not to worry, I am gone.  He ate, I went in the house, no spraying.

Two of our dogs got sprayed one evening.  My husband decided to take a couple of them with him to lock the gate ( it was dark). Our gate is 1/4 mile from the house.  One of the dogs was on a long leash the other dog was not. They both came upon this poor little skunk and surprised/startled him and he sprayed them both.  Mercy, it will make your eyes water right now.  Those poor dogs were howling, eyes watering, rolling and rubbing themselves in the grass trying to get the stink off of them.  We bathed them twice that evening, even used vinegar...still smelled. Bathed them again the next day.  It took over a week for the smell to finally leave.  Moral of the story: respect skunks.

Here are the videos. The first one is of the skunks learning to share the cat food between the tea cup bird feeders.  You can kind of see the other skunk between the railing. The next video is of a bigger skunk taking over the eating place of the little skunks. The last video shows the little skunks coming up to the deck and eating together.
The quality of the film is not great, but you can see what they are doing.