Is there skunk poison? Are there homemade options to produce one? Is skunk poisoning even legal? Find out.

Skunks are seen as harmful predators that no one is interested in breeding them, not even the government or any wildlife management scheme.

The truth is, all those beautiful pictures and cartoons you see on TV are a real distortion of what skunk is. They didn’t help to put the animal in its proper perspective.

Skunks are a set of annoying, mischievous, irritating, and destructive pests that find it easy to call anywhere home to the detriment of the landowners.

Spraying is their favorite mischievous act. A skunk spray is a liquid substance it brings out from its anus- this substance is a dangerous form of air pollution.

A skunk does not spray all the time; it only sprays to ward off predators and also sprays to ward off a male skunk who is proposing at the wrong time. A single dose of spray has a long-lasting foul odor that changes the ambiance of the environment for at least six months.

It is almost impossible to get rid of the odor except you get a chemical used to eradicate the smell of skunk’s spray.

So you need a lot of patience and relaxation of muscles to completely eradicate the animal.

If you have a skunk in your environment, there are several ways of eradicating it;

  1. By Trapping: You can use bait and set a trap to cage it. Skunks are omnivores, they eat anything, but they take special likings to anything fleshy. So baiting with fish, meat, or chicken is your ideal option. After trapping a skunk, the smart step is to relocate it to a place that is more than 10 miles, up to 20 miles from your property. For some people, trapping the animal and relocating it alive is the best approach to getting rid of the animal. For them, it is far easier than it sounds. But if you are skilled at this method, you will successfully trap the animal without getting sprayed.
  1. By Killing With A Gun: You can also eliminate the animal by killing it with a gun. But you need to be steady with your shot and be ready to be sprayed. So my advice if you need to shoot a skunk, make sure you are putting on a cloth that you will throw away. Some people have argued that shooting skunk or killing it with a lethal trap is the best means of getting rid of the pest. There is a slim chance of really getting sprayed if you have to shoot it with a gun or with a lethal trap.
  1. By Poisoning: You can also get rid of a Skunk by poisoning it. This way, you can get away without being sprayed. The only problem with poisoning the animal is that its waste is very poisonous, and it stinks for a very long period.

Poisoning Skunk

Using poison to get rid of skunk is an act of inhumanity against the animal, but then the animal itself is an act of inhumanity against us and the ecosystem.

In some countries, it is illegal to poison the animal. The poisons that are used to kill skunk is also dangerous to other pets in the home, so it is strongly advised to keep pets off in the process of placing poisoned food for a skunk.

The following are the poisons that can be used to exterminate skunks in the household;

  • Anticoagulant; this rodenticide is used to get rid of rats and mice. It is a combination of warfarin, difenacoum, brodifacoum, bromadiolone, and others. These combination causes acute damage to the capillaries and leads to internal bleeding. This poison is very painful for the animal, and the pain will go on for some days until the animal gets a hypovolemic circulatory shock and then dies.
  • Antifreeze- Ethylene Glycol; this poison also causes a lot of pain to the animal before it finally dies; the whole process does not take more than 24 hours. It is capable of killing any other pet around, so you have to ensure that your pets are away from the poison. After ingestion of the food containing ethylene glycol, the liver metabolizes it into glycolate and oxalate. This then causes extreme cellular damage in all the tissues of the animals, including the kidney and every organ of the body. In the beginning, the animal will experience nausea and vomiting; after that, the muscle will begin to twitch, follow by the kidney, the liver, and every single organ in the animal until the animal dies.
  • Bromethalin: this type of poison is very toxic to all mammals- humans, household pets, birds, fish, etc. after ingestion, bromethalin destroys the nervous system and causes seizures and hyperthermia. This poison works on the animal until it dies after about 36 hours. When handling this poison, you must apply extra caution. Put on surgical gloves and make sure you wash your hands properly after use
  • Cholecalciferol: This poison kills the animal in 24-36 hours. It causes renal failure caused by the production of hypercalcemia that leads to the calcification of the system’s soft tissue.
  • Strychnine: This poison exterminates all kinds of pests. When it is taken in either by swallowing or by inhaling, it causes convulsion in skunk. When the convulsion becomes excessive, the animal then dies as a result of exhaustion or asphyxia.

Reason Why It is Better To Kill Skunk

It is dangerous to have skunks living on your property. They don’t only have a horrible smell; they are also carriers of diseases like rabies, hepatitis, tularemia, Q-fever, canine distemper, leptospirosis, Trypanosoma… More so, they are quite capable of transferring these diseases and infections in one split second contact.

You want to keep your pet or young ones away from skunk’s bite because of rabies that they carry. Skunks are the major distributor of rabies infection to household pets who then transfer it to humans. Their bites can also cause rabies infection on humans.

More so, a skunk’s anus has two glands that produce the combination of methyl and butyl thiols, which they use to defend themselves against any predator. No one can stand the foul smell; even big bears will move away when they perceive that odor.

Skunks can also spray up to 3ft with accuracy. Direct eye contact can result in temporal blindness and skin irritation.

If a skunk sprays on your clothes, you have no alternative than to throw the clothes away.

I would also like you to know that skunk sometimes sprays not to ward off predators but simply to be mischievous, and they are not as shy as they appear to be.

In my opinion, it is better to kill a skunk, and I’ll state my reasons below;

  • Skunk are disease carriers, not just any diseases but life-changing and terminal diseases, you would rather not experience.
  • They don’t need any reason to spray; they can spray your innocent pet. They are sometimes naughty with their anus spray.
  • If you have poultry, you are in big trouble because eating raw eggs is one of their specialty
  • They are inborn hunters in killing birds, big or small. They enjoy eating chickens
  • Leaving Skunks in the wild should get you worried about the population of birds especially as it decreases
  • If a skunk is left alone, ti will keep breeding its young ones under your house- this means more skunks, each having one reason or the other to spray each other, a pet, or you.
  • Trapping skunk is not only difficult and sometimes impossible; it is a time and energy-wasting exercise.
  • Relocating skunk is more like making another landlord as you go through the stress of catching it. It increases the chances of re-visitation because that landlord in an attempt to keep it far away might drop skunk by your neighborhood again
  • Skunk is not different from rats, mice, or snake. They are all deadly animals that signify trouble for the household. Skunk is destructive and will keep digging holes at every point in your home.

Skunk’s remains are dangerous and dreadful because of the odor. This means that after applying the poisoning you need to raid every hole and everywhere around the house where you think that skunk might be.

If you can’t find skunks’ remains, then you have to be ready to bear the horrible stench around your household for a very long time because it is difficult to exterminate.

The other option is to get the chemical that is used to get rid of their smell.

After this, you have to maintain healthy hygiene, take care of your garden, fill up every hole created by a skunk. Secure your garden, ensure that your garbage can is properly bolted and that there are no litters.

The bottom line is to do all you can to prevent another skunk from spending its vacation in your home. Skunk is not all about its spray; it is also about the diseases that it is capable of spreading around.

One Comment

  1. Al McCooey says:

    What are the instructions for applying antifreeze, how do you get it into the skunks body?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *