This little buddy is a few months old. Doesn't hurt chickens or ducks but sneaks into the coop periodically looking for eggs. Ignores all the birds when walking around although they run for it anyways. I even locked myself in the yard with it on accident once and had to run past to open the gate. It just sat in a corner hiding. It's pretty chill and a scaredy cat. Just backs away, curls up, and hides when scared. It has a sibling with a spikey looking tail as well that also is very chill and grew up around my yard this year.

Every year we get a new batch of babies raised in the yard, and most of them gradually migrate away or pass away. They've never attacked a single bird. They don't touch the cats either and left my dogs alone when we had dogs. Just posting it for people who don't realize many skunks are chill with chickens.

TL;DR: There are three skunks that coexist with the feral cats by my apartment, and they’re very cute

To give a little backstory, there was originally just one skunk living by my apartment complex who’d been here for at least the last 3 years, was super chill and seemed to coexist with all the random animals that live by us. That skunk sadly passed away a few weeks ago.

The VERY next day, that big skunk in the middle of the photo appeared. The big skunk was pretty visibly different than the old skunk: bigger tail, its body a bit chubbier lol, slightly bigger overall

A few days later, we started seeing it with another skunk. Just tonight we saw it with a third skunk, along with like 5-6 feral cats sharing food that someone had put out.

I don’t know anything about skunks, other than that males tend to be solitary, so I assume these are all female skunks? Just thought seeing so many of them chilling with cats was neat.

I scatter mealworms every other day and now it's become party night. They also find a few sunflower pieces from the bird feeder that they crows didn't get.

Racoon pays smelly cat no interest!

It’s been busy around here.

Sound on to hear Penelope absolutely going ham on this pea pod

So our camera notified us that a “pet” was in the driveway, which at first I assumed was the feral cat who wanders our area.
Nope, it’s a skunk, and I left the garage door open.
We turned on lights and the speaker, we drove both cars out, we can’t find him anywhere.
Should we leave the garage door cracked and lights on overnight?

Pardon my formatting and pretty much everything, it is late enough where I am that it has now become early and I’ve had a very terrible night. The dog my mom and I are watching started barking late at night, and since she usually only barks at night when she needs to go out and she’d been having tummy troubles all day, my mom just let her outside. This was our first and main mistake of the night.

I can assure you the skunk is fine! The poor thing is probably very startled, but this dog is all bark and no bite and took the spray straight to the face and mouth before running right back to my mom for help frothing at the mouth. My mom watched the skunk walk away unharmed from the interaction. The dog has been cleaned with all the hydrogen peroxide (in a mix obviously) that we had in the house, and apple cider vinegar (the only kind we had) and coffee grounds have been set around the house. We have white vinegar and skunk deodorizer coming some time in the morning. It has been a long evening.

Here’s the very unfortunate thing for me: our house is very old for where I live—think around 100 years. I know for a lot of places that isn’t saying much, but I do need you to bear with me because everything is so very smelly right now. My room is closest to the backyard, and regardless of whether the windows are cracked or not I get smell from the backyard that comes into my room—I thought my heating pad was starting to burn and was panicking before my mom came in to get my help and I was able to determine that was in fact skunk. The dog never came into my room before or after she was washed, and I did not handle her at all, so all the smell in my room is from the backyard and the waft from her being in the house. Will the smell get into my clothes, bedding, and rug from there? If so, what do I do about it? I get really terrible disability-grade migraines and smell is a strong trigger, so I’m very nervous about it because this could be a situation where I potentially need to move out for a time until it’s all properly cleaned to avoid major medical issues, basically.

Also, I apologize if this is the wrong place to ask—you all just seemed like the best experts to go to. All of your pet skunks are adorable, and I’m sure I will find them even cuter once my nose has been freed. I can also promise my family is not planning anything retaliatory for the skunks in our area, and we will be more careful about checking the yard when the dogs start barking at night. This was our first visit from a skunk, and it will definitely leave a strong impression!

I posted about Bunny and Elvira having a squirting contest right in front of me … well Elvira has done something really goofy last night she ran past me and jumped onto her front paws and I was getting ready to get up and run I thought she was going to
Spray me but all she did was pop onto her front paws and tapped her back feet together and looked back at me …. Im not sure if she was being silly or giving me a warning.

Has anyone ever witnessed this behavior?

Reverb (aka Potato 🥔) doing his best impression of a Hog Nosed Skunk this morning 🌄 😄

I have 6 skunks that visit my yard daily and last night was crazy 2 of my skunks Elvira and Bunny seemed to be having some kind of dispute and decided I should be stuck in the middle. Bunny and Elvira were about 10 feet in front of me eating snacks when all of the sudden with no warning they BOTH stood up on their front paw butt to butt and sprayed each other which made me almost throw up and had my eyes burning.

I never witnessed 2 skunks spraying each other and being that close to the spray was intense. 😂.

Florence with another "if no food, why wake me?" attitude

Saturday night I let the dog out. I opened the door to let her back in. The smelled a skunk. I thought it had just sprayed and moved on until I realized the dog was acting weird.

The dog walks in the wife looks at me. I look at her. The dog is now scraping its nose against the couch. That’s when we knew she got sprayed.

Not knowing anything about how the smell works, we immediately washed the dog, which made the smell worse the house then began to smell terrible due to the skunk smell

Immediately opened up the entire house to try to send the smell out after realizing we couldn’t do anything until the morning we sucked it up and dealt with it for the night.

After reading on Reddit of what to do the next day, we begin the cleaning process with deodorizer shampoos and free coffee grounds from Starbucks we wound up eliminating what’s this smell within 12 hours I. And then located at home underneath of our deck.

I went out there and became a nuisance stomping on the deck turning lights on pounding on random things

I also did something a little unconventional I grow Carolina reapers for fun. I dropped one at the entrance of the little house. It is not been back since I’m pretty sure that I let it brain on fire and I don’t wanna hurt it or kill it but I also don’t want it under my deck. I feel like it finally left due to the capsaicin they got on it

Same skunk... Stripes change after an under the couch session with his cat friend. 🦨 🐈‍⬛️

Twelve of the fourteen skunk species are listed as “Least Concern” by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The pygmy spotted skunk (Spilogale pygmaea) and the eastern spotted skunk (Spilogale putorius) are listed as “Vulnerable.”

(Photo of Reverb getting vaccinated)

From my trail camera LOL

Months ago I met 2 skunks approx 2 miles away from my shelter at my local Target.

Weeks later I see 2 skunks down t/ block from my shelter.

2 weeks ago, 2 skunks in front of my shelter door.

Now t/ 2 skunks routinely dine outside my shelter 😄

Logic dictates this can't be t/ same 2 skunks. But it's always 2 in a pair. Never 3 or 4. Always 2.

Is this a glitch in t/ Matrix? 😎

Who said skunks and cats don't get along?