If you have a skunk on your property, before you stock up on tomato juice, check out these helpful tips.
Cartoons may portray skunks as loveable creatures that are slightly misunderstood. In reality, they can be a real nuisance. Skunks can leave a lingering odor around your home or shed, fill your yard with holes and can kill chickens and ducks. Worst of all, skunks are known carriers of several diseases, including rabies.
As you can see, there are many reasons why you don’t want to find a skunk under your shed or anywhere on your property for that matter. So how do you go about getting rid of them?
How to Help Get Rid of a Skunk
Comforts like easily accessible food and readymade dens attract skunks. Below, you’ll find three simple tactics for helping get rid of skunks.
1. Eliminate den possibilities.
Skunks are opportunist creatures and will make their dens in burrows that other animals have abandoned. At the same time, they’re powerful diggers, so they have no problem burrowing under structures or digging out their own dens. To deter skunks, you can dig a small trench around the perimeter of your shed. Then, bend wire fencing into an “L” shape and attach it to the structure, with the long stem of the “L” buried in the ground. This can help prevent the skunk from burrowing under sheds and other buildings. It may also increase the odds that the skunk will waddle off in search of a better place to call “home." However, this is hard to accomplish and could damage the building if not done carefully, so you should leave this to a professional.
2. Keep your yard clean.
A skunk will also happily play house under woodpiles, so make certain yours is enclosed or stacked in such a way to help ensure there’s no place for skunks to nest. In addition, skunks are scavengers and will eat acorns, nuts and fruits that fall to the ground. If you have any trees that drop fruit or nuts in your yard, rake up anything that has fallen to help eliminate skunk food sources. You should also rake up birdseed that may have been knocked out of feeders, and bring in any pet food or water dishes before dark.
3. Call a wildlife control professional.
Certain means of skunk control are illegal. Because of this, it’s best to leave this situation in the hands of a specially trained wildlife control technician who knows how to remove a skunk properly. Otherwise, you could end up harming yourself, getting bitten or being subjected to the infamously potent — and sometimes temporarily blinding — skunk spray.
DIY skunk removal is possible, but it can be a real stinker of a challenge. If you can’t repel or deter these animals from your property, Terminix® can help you figure out how to remove a skunk and customize a wildlife control plan that can keep it from coming back.
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