Skunk question

Do female skunks leave the den in the spring or do they hole up until the babies are born? We have been working a skunk job at a church for 10 days. We caught one male trying to get in the hole but none coming out. The den hole forks left and right about 15 feet in. The church had a another burst of skunk smell inside yesterday. Any ideas?

God is testing their devotion to sitting through the sermon.

The females will certainly be leaving the den to find food.

Many skunks will be visiting the den at this time of year. There is usually a fair amount of spraying going on during breeding season. The smell inside the church didn't necessarily come from the den. Skunks spraying anywhere close by the church will be noticed on the inside.

I would make another check for a 2nd entrance (new) 10 days is a long time for the female(s) to go without food. I had one stick it out for 10 days but it was robbing the trail in bait till I finally cut her off of that.

Chip

Thanks for the input.

With the breeding season going on typically I will make a positive set with a Comstock trap and then every time I make a catch I throw some dirt into the hole to tell if the skunk is coming from the hole or not. Males will come from miles looking for love in all the wrong places and usually the homeowner only wants the problem animals caught.

If it's a positive set wouldnt you know they came from the hole? Where else would it come from?

I have found that wind direction can make a difference in how strong the smell is. The spray site might be just out side the hole and when the wind is right, it will blow the smell into the hole.

Baby skunks often leak a little, and if wind is blowing from the side with the hole its going to push some scent up thru the floor. Male skunks will kill each other over a mate, I suppose they toot a little during the battle. Sometimes they smell a skunk because the little guy got biffed by a car near by and he limped it on into his den before he took the big sleep, and finally, sometimes a fox or other animal drags a dead skunk in for snacks later, so its not even a skunk den.

That would do it for me!

We caught 22 skunks for this horse racing track last week only 4 were males . One hole we setup with a positive set caught skunks and one groung hog . So they were sharing a den together

All the skunk issues we work on I have cameras out, not even the highest quality cams, but if setup right you can definitely identify males and females as their backsides get photographed!

Having run both video and still pic, the video is far better as the shots from the stills can be washed out sometimes, etc...due to proximity to entry points, and so on.

In the southwest we've been in full skunk romance season for at least a few weeks now and on camera have had as many as 5 at one entry point mix of males and females and homeowners report
the types of sounds that skunks make when "tussling" from experience we've had raising a few... The tussling seems to get some "gas" going though not usually full blown spray.

The folks where the odor comes and doesn't go away lately are definitely the dead skunk column where it was hit by a car, ran into the den and expired, or died of a variety of other causes both natural and man made...

Had some folks the other day who were convinced the skunk was alive though they stated it was sleeping between their shed and the wall of their property... When I asked about the location and that it was in the open the reply was, "but it keeps spraying so it must be alive!"

Ahhhh.... some conversations are fun! Trying to explain to folks that not only does a dead skunk often give off the burst of spray immediately upon dying, but that as decomposition occurs the breakdown keeps that odor rolling along....

Sure enough, dead skunk, far enough along that all the insects had found it, at least it was in the open, the crawlspace retrievals are not my favorite thing...

Believe we are going to have some very early litters this year with such a short winter and a very early summer as it seems we are skipping spring down here...

In my area skunks have a circuit of 5 to 8 days. Males all year except for early winter hold up and females the same but add birthing and rearing. They will be at a den for a day or two then gone for the 5 to 8. My females will start to stay in a tighter circuit as the birthing time gets closer, to eventually be there every day at the den they choose as the birthing den just before they drop. but will still go out at night coming and going all night after the first 3 to 5 days of dropping young. Dens in my area may be single skunk to communal den. I just had this discussion in depth over on my Facebook page.

Jonesie, are you talking communal birthing dens?

That would be a new one for me.

SGS No, I am sorry, Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I was meaning this time of year breeding and just after. Birthing and rearing dens will be a single female and young. But let me say here, also that when I mean communal dens I am not referring to multiple skunks in one hole at the same time as a normal. I only see multiple skunks at a den site at the same time in places where the skunks can get away from each other after they enter the den, say an large brush pile or large building for example. I will have different skunks using the same den on different days though. One thing I think happens is folks will set 2 traps at a den and catch 2 skunks and assume that there was 2 skunks in side the den, when one or both was just passing by.

I use a positive set normally two tube traps in and one out this will get them coming or going