Baby Skunks

Hello All,

A woman called me this evening because she had 5 baby skunks and mom walking around in her back yard. I gave her a quote. I quoted her the same price per animal baby or adult.

I did a follow up call and the husband bought ammonia to drive the skunks out of from under their shed.

My ??? how do you charge for baby skunks?

Thanks

Chuck

Good question. If they are fairly small we get 10 bucks apiece less for the babies. Now I've never gotten sprayed by mom but a baby will

shoot you just for the fun of it. So I guess that pricing really doesn't compute unless you're the one that's making out the check.

P.S. Our last customer saved $90, but we caught all nine in one day so we were more than satisfied.

If I can get them all in the same visit, I charge as if they are one animal.

I flat rate it. Set up squirrel traps and a few skunk sized and have all the young in one shot normally. I then set a comstock over the hole if I did not catch mom. Usually a 2 trip deal, but my flat rate will cover 4-5 days worth of trapping. Set the squirrel cages close to the skunk cages, if moms caught the little guys will be all over that trap.

same as RF, a flat rate of 5 days. I feel confident in that. If i have to euthanize I add $10 after the first four for excess fees, but thats moot.

Per animal...babies are just a little cheaper...only because the customer looks at it ..like ....smaller should be less and yes they will nail you for looking at them crosseyed..like a kid with a water pistol...

Heck, I got turned down for saying I would charge $40 for the whole family a while back!

How does the flat rate for five days work? Let's say you catch the whole family of mom and her five babies in two days. Do you pull

the cages or leave them there for three more days? What if you catch raccoons ( like we do sometimes ) and at the end of five days

you only have one skunk and the other five are still running around? Do you charge another $450 or whatever the fee is for another 5

days of trapping? I have a hard time figuring out how you make it equal for all customers. Steve's is really difficult. If he catches

a whole family at one time he charges for one animal. If it takes four days to catch the same amount of animals at the neighbors,

he's got to pay 75% more? That wouldn't work here. I'd just like to know how you guys balance things out. After all, a lot of the

jobs are referrals and your customers know what each other paid for your services.

Paul, Chuck asked "... how do you charge for baby skunks?"

My setup for a female with a litter is to set a raccoon cage with a colony trap on each side and all covered with a blanket. Only the large trap is baited and I usually catch the female and maybe one of the young in that trap. Most times the rest of the litter piles into one of the colony traps to be next to the mother.

If I get there in the morning and have the whole group, I charge for the female and I charge again for the trap full of young as if it was just one more animal. The customer feels like he's getting a good deal and he is. I caught the equivalent of two animals and made my money.

If I get a little one that's stubborn and needs to be netted, it's extra.

In another couple of weeks they will be getting to big to wrangle like that and I'm back to charging for each individual animal.

Paul flat rate covers me for 4-5 return trips, I really am charging for the litter. I never tell the client X days. I do not see how that works unless it was for 30 days or more. Most skunks will be back to the den 7-10 days, but do get the occasional 14+ day return. Guess those customers are SOL when charging by time. Home owner is allowed to check traps here, but I always will check when instincts tell me I should have had something by now. If it goes over 5 trips I lost money, and hopefully been taught a new lesson by the skunks:) By the time the little ones are coming out of the den Mom is getting back to being easy to catch.....(most of the time)...

Thanks guys. I hate it when I don't know what I'm talking about so I've been asking questions that probably should have been asked a

long time ago. I appreciate you taking the time to answer especially in this busy season.

Round here, the skunk kits I catch all think they're Billy the Kid...shoot ya for any reason, or no reason whatsoever. Catching them by the carload, tho.

Paul,

as ive stated before I used to charge per animal and although I never lost any jobs because of it I sort of felt a little bad when client a had a mamma and 3 babbies and his neighbor had a mama and 7 babies.

it used to be 149 set up, 75 per. Last night I set a trap for a mama and 5 babies very close to my house- probably what I get for releasing some in my backyard. at 11 pm a neighbor was walking his dog and heard the mom in the trap, which I picked up at 6 am. I replaced the 9" plasticatch with a muskrat colony trap at that time and at 9 am while driving through the area I checked it and had 6 babies in the colony. now I left the colony set because he said he seen 5 babies, and me getting 6 tells me he is the typical customer and probably really doesn't know how many there are, but im guessing 6 is it.

Now in 2 trips my old way I would be at 149 set up and 7 catches at 75 ads on another 525 for a total of 674. I now do skunks for up to 5 days at 350 flat rate. oh well I am happy with the 350 and I turned him into a pest control client as well and tonight his neighbor called with questions about mice.

sidenote, you haven't had fun till you have dumped 6 babies out of a colony into a bucket.... thank God their smell isn't near as powerful or longlasting as mamas! I haven't had an adult spray in 4 years other than one in a 12 in plasti catch that I had standing on end and the wind blew it over while I was opening the trailer door- that one wasn't happy, but I swear at least 150% of the babies spray 200% of the time.

as far as someone above talking about 14 day returns maybe in the fall, but right now when a client tells me he has a skunk under his shed ill get the mom that night and the babies in 1-2 days max after I have mom.

Is there a preferred bait for mama when you are trapping a litter? I tried getting one for a friend a little while back and positive set the hole with a comstock double door. Somehow she dugout somewhere else. Then my friend continued to rip the floor out and the skunk moved her liter that night. Never got a chance to catch the liter

travelin, I guess it's all in the way you look at it. At $350 flat rate your 4 skunk customer would pay $87.50 each and his 8 skunk

neighbor only $43.75 each. So that isn't exactly fair either. The nice thing about owning your own business though, is exactly what

you pointed out. You didn't think the per skunk rate was fair and you could do something about it.

You and I see that the individual price varies with a flat rate but in the end the customer only cares about what the total bill is, at least that's been my observation with most customers.

I have a customer that has a really nice lake home here it's probably worth 500 to 750 thousand dollars and he has bats and it's not a huge deal but I just gave him a price at 1250 dollars to fix the issue. He then continues to tell me about how he's got a new Lake Home down towards Minneapolis on Lake Minnetonka that he just bought aND he has a pretty big bat issue that he wants me to come down there and take a look at. it normally that's way out of my area but I looked it up online and he paid 7.1 million dollars for it. However that said he still bickered a little about the 1250 dollars to fix the lake Home up here so price is always an issue regardless of your money situation.

No perfect way to do it we all just have to adapt to what we and our customers can live with.

Some of the wealthy seem to feel that they are always being over-charged because they have lots of money. I make a point of charging

the billionaire the exact price as I do the twodollarandfiftycentaire. And I can sometimes see their point. I once had a salesman

tell me I should have charged my customer more, "because she can afford it."

Unfortunately, I hear that phrase all the time.

To me that is the same as saying "he busted his butt and made lots of money so he should give me some for free"

Paul, its funny how geography effects people, around here, no one wants to do per animal. Which is fine by me, we have waaaay lower catch numbers than you.

If I finish early I collect full payment. If your have a mechanic or electrician tell you he will be done friday, but finishes wednesday, do you expect a discount? I put it clearly in my contract.

Now if I run over, depending on the circumstances, I can throw in a few days free no problem. If its a distance away, I usually just as for a small fee to cover materials (gas) for the next week. I do this because I solve problems, not trap animals.

I had 4 straight confirmed squirrel jobs this year where I got there, went in the attic to check for juvies because our season was off this year, removed the nest, and the squirrels never came back. I still set positive sets to be sure, and I had to be paid for that time. I solved a problem though, and thats what matters.

I trap animals and cause problems. Maybe I'm doing it backwards!

2 more babies from that same litter. That makes 8 babbies, a record for me

Now you're catching "babbies"?

As long as they pay I will take them all

What Dave meant is "babies" versus young of year or juvenile in terms of terminology for wildlife management.

(At least based on previous posts of this type...)

These are definitely babies, about 6 inches long without tail. Have been going after babies for about 3 weeks now

Sorry travelin,

Let me clarify. Many folks object to the use of the term "babies" or "mother" etc....

I'm sure you are catching what you say you are, Dave's comment related to using human terminology
for wildlife.

I personally have no dog in the fight, though I use terms like pup, kits, hatchlings, cubs, for whatever is appropriate for
the species.

Some would say to talk about wildlife professionally you should use the terms given to young wildlife, however again homeowners and
the general public will use about every term in the book, so again to me, whatever floats your boat.

Just clarifying we are talking terms....

Duh, Dave's comment had to do with using three Bs to spell Babbbies.

"Young", "juveniles" and "nestlings" work for every species.
"Babies" refers to human infants.

Well I hate to bust everyone's bubble but the definition of baby is:

1.a very young child, especially one newly or recently born

2. a young or newly born animal

3. the youngest member of a family or group