Living on a Gully!
If you have read Marie's most recent blog then you know about our little stinker. No, I don't mean Jade when she has gas. I mean a real baby skunk which wandered up from the gully with its mother a couple of days ago and managed to fall in one of our window wells. The mother is no where to be seen, but our dog, Jade, managed to find the little critter in our window well on Sunday.
Now our dilema was- how do you get a skunk out of your window well without getting sprayed? I went on the internet to find out about baby skunks. Can they spray too? How old are they before they can spray? How old is this little critter? Is it as stinky as an adult skunk?
What I found out was that baby skunks can share their odor at about 1 month. Most skunks give birth in late spring (May) which would make this baby at least a month old. I also found out that baby's can't shoot their spray 6 to 15 feet like adults, but they usually just "piddle."
I don't like to see animals suffer (even a skunk). From my neighbors' experiences with skunks, I knew that animal control doesn't usually bother with skunks. My neighbors have had to find their own ways of disposing of their skunk invaders. Cat food is one of the biggest attractions for them. So I am very careful to bring in our cats' food each night so that we don't have racoon and skunky visitors at night like we used to. This has helped a lot, but I guess friday or saturday night, we had visitors, hence the baby skunk in the window well.
With all this information, Marie, Anthon and I decided to try to get the poor little thing out of the window well and back out to the gully. Our first attempt was to put a board down into the well so the Little Stinker could crawl out by itself. No go. Poor Little Stinker has been traumatized by the fall and doesn't want to move. Then Anthon has a great idea. Make a skunkie trap out of an old cereal box, attach a string to it, then lure the skunkie into it with cat food. When Little Stinker gets into the box we lift it out by the string and take it back to the gully. Unfortunately, Little Stinker doesn't want to get into the box, and when we try to prod it gently into the box with a hoe, Little Stinker lets us know it is not pleased. The internet was right. Month old skunks can spray or "piddle." We left the box. The offending odor drove us away and permeated our house. Peeeeuw! We gave up after that. It took all night to get rid of the smell by running the fan throughout the house.
Now for the latest update! Little Stinker is back with her gully friends! Monday morning and afternoon I checked the window well. Little Stinker was still huddled in the well away from the box. I had decided that I would probably have to let it die in my window well and hope I could get it out before it bloated and released its stink. This morning (Tuesday) I tried to find time to check on Little Stinker, but couldn't. Finally this afternoon I was reading Marie's blog and it reminded me that I hadn't checked on it. So when Nicole was asleep, I went downstairs to peek through the window...and all I could see was the box. Could Little Stinker have crawled out on the board? Or was it in the box?
I hurried out with the hoe to try to snag the string so I could pull up the box. As I looked into the well...no skunk. Yipee! I snagged the string and pulled up the box. OOOhhh! Little Stinker is in the box looking at me! I'm muttering, "Please don't spray. Please don't spray," as I hold the string and box as far away from me as possible. I hurried across my yard, out through the field to the edge of the gully and lowered the box. I got lucky. Little Stinker decided not to spray even though it was a little bit of a rough ride. Using the hoe, I turned the box over so Little Stinker could easily get out and then I hightailed it back to the house before it decided to leave me with a smelly souvineer of its visit.
So I guess all's well that ends well, as long as its not in my window well.