If when using a pole or chloroform you are right on top of the cage, why do you need to be 20 yards with a pellet gun? The skunk needs to be in the same position for a pole as a gun, seems that hitting the lungs would be easier closer up.

Did you ever have a skunk wake up after knocking him out with chloroform?

I havent personally, but Bill Cosby may have.

It's going to be hard to beat Haggard's answer! Boco, I can't speak for all of us but I can tell you that personally I rarely knock an animal out and then it is usually by accident. Once a skunk is goofy enough I can pick him up, maybe take a picture or two, and put him in a bucket to be relocated. Birds always look like their dead. Of course, after you're five miles down the road, they're flying around your head because none of them are.