Young man, pay attention to the future FIL, he knows his onions!!!  We trap
and carry skunks all the time and have never been sprayed.  When you get to
the destination lift the cover by the opening, open the door and let Mr.
Skunk take his time getting out.

The trick to not having skunks in the first place is not to have things for
them to eat.  No outside pet food, poultry food and get rid of the grubs in
the lawn and garden.  The grubs are most likely what they are after.  Ruth




At 6:13 PM -0500 1/14/02, Bruce Marcham wrote:
Pam:

Plant something that smells like skunk?  Isn't the problem with the skunks
their smell?

Wouldn't the skunks want to spray their scent on the flowers to mark their
territory (and show the Peppee LePew amatuer what a REAL skunk smells like)?

Mind you, I'm all for natural ways of getting rid of pests.  I'm still
waiting for a way to get rid of squirrels (short of trapping them which is
what I've been doing).

I called my future father-in-law (at least that's what he calls
himself--nothing's formal yet) to see how he collected coyote or fox urine
(I know he had some coyote or fox pups in a cage for a while to collect
their urine but I suspect he collected it in a pan under the wire mesh
floor of the cage)).  He's 80 years old and has been a semi-professional
fur trapper all his life (his main vocation was cabinet maker), lives in
the back woods southeast of Syracuse about 40 miles, Union Valley by name
(between Linklaen and Taylor, south of Cazenovia & Syracuse, east of
Cortland).  Anyway, he says you don't want to use the urine to scare the
skunk(s) away, that it will attrack them (and other animals as well)
instead.  This doesn't make sense to me but that's what he tells me.

He recommended trapping them but I said that was not likely to go over big
on account of the smell.  He said all you have to do is throw a blanket
over the trap before you release them as they won't spray unless they can
see you (I'm not sure how to open one of these traps with a blanket over
it...).

When I dragged a large, ancient 20" wood planer I bought at auction out to
his shop (no room at my place) I discovered two dead skunks (waiting to be
skinned) were residing where the planer was  to go (a small shed outside
his shop).  We worked for a while clearing out the 5'x8' shed until finally
I suggested he remove the skunks before we did anything else.  He got a big
kick out of that.

P.S. (P.U.?)  He sometimes smells like skunk.  I therefore hesitate to take
his advice on the blanket approach as if it goes wrong for him it's not a
big deal.


I'll stick to squirrels.
--
Ruth Barton
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Westminster, VT