This morning at 4:00, I heard my rooster crowing so i got up to go see if there was a problem in the chicken coop. As I have had a racoon get in and killed all of my 8wk old chicks last year :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( . I could see nothing wrong, all the chickens were on the roosts. I swung my light over to see if any chickens were in the nesting boxes and there was skunk in one of them... Eating an egg that must have been laid after I gathered yesterday. YIKES!!! so I came in the house and got up Adrian, my trusty varmint slayer on occasion, he ran down to the neighbors, who get up at 4:00 to milk cows, and borrowed their .22 gun and saved the day for me. YUCKO now you should smell the coop. and me. and the shovel and the backyard... or maybe not. it's disgusting! Sorry, no pictures. I sure hope your day starts better than this.
Great Scott, Carolyn!!--What a drama...and at THAT hour. You have has some probs with beasts raiding your chicken coop, haven't you. I think that ridding yourself of a skunk would present a whole set of 'different' problems though. I was wondering if your boy copuldn't have waited to shoot the thing until he was out of the chook's nesting part. What a stinky business that must have been. I trust that you buried it well deep. I hope that the odor fades soon...otherwise there's the closepin bag.
It's a good thing all my eggs are in the refrigerator, the skunk can't get at those. The rooster must make a good skunk alarm? Now no one will want to go near you or the coop. Will the eggs smell skunk, since the smell is 'in the air?' I had a skunk spend the winter under the toolshed. Noticed in late fall I did not kick him out till spring. With concrete blocks blocking re-entry to his 'home' the clawed dirty shingles indicated a vain attempt at returning. The skunk now resides elsewhere. I hope the stench doesn't last long. Extra feed for the rooster!! Jerry
The skunk climbed out of the box and was on it's way out the door when it got taken care of, but the smell inside the coop was atrocious. We buried the thing about 2 minutes later. I scooped it up on a shovel and carried it back to the excavator and Adrian started it up and dug me a BIG hole. the bucket on the machine is a ditch cleaning bucket, 60" wide. But it still smelled BAD - inside and outside and the stench just clung to me. Jerry having chickens vicariously, for you, just isn't the problem it is for me I hope you enjoyed this adventure with me.
Wow,Carolyn, that must have been awful! Were your hens upset enough to stop laying for a day or two, do you think? We have a resident skunk, living of all places under our house. We are on a slab, and the little critter tunneled under. We have "critter be gone" at the entrance and he didn't come home this morning, so we hope he has moved on.
Morning Jane, No I don't think they are that upset. They are making the "Ilaidanegg" sound already. I do feel for you with the skunk under your house though. Yuck. They do eat a lot of grubs in the lawn, but if they would leave my chickens alone we would get along better. maybe.
What a way to wake up! We haven't got skunks at all here, and I've never smelled them so I don't know what I'm missing and don't want to know either. Good riddance to it.
Droopy what kind of pests do you have or need to avoid on occasion? No raccoons, no skunks, you just don't know what you are missing out on. at least we don't have bears here yet, but they are on the move this direction. Do you have a weed called skunk weed? It grows in bogs and smells just like a skunk.
Not a pleasant way to start ANY morning! Glad you at least able to rid yourself of it... just hope the smell goes away quickly for you.
The smell will not go away anytime soon!!! It left a big circle of its spray right on the floor of the coop. If you have never experienced the spray up close it is a yellow colored liquid and the smell lingers for weeks and weeks when it's that concentrated. I scraped as much off the floor as I could, but the smell is still there. I had one touch the electric fence in the corner of the yard/coop and that was weeks ago and I can still smell it. It sprayed the side of the coop that time. Major YUCKO!!
A smelly adventure Carolyn,..ah the joys of keeping chickens!,..the only smell we get here is from the Fox,..smells like sulphur,..but doesn't last as long as the Skunk smell.
Carolyn, we got a skunk deodorizer from the feed store when our dog got sprayed. WalMart carries one, too. It's an enzyme and you just rub it on and the odor is gone. Maybe it is worth a try to rub it on the stain in your chicken coop. dooley
That's a good idea, Dooley. I actually have an old bottle of that in the garage. Maybe it's still good. I never did have to use on my dog while he was still with us nor did I ever get rid of it. I'll go do that as soon as I am done here. And I'll let you know if it worked.
Yikes Carolyn I'm glad you got him. We too, several years ago had all of our 8wk. old chicks killed by a raccoon. We had them in enclosed dog kennel fencing (before we got smarter about chicken care). They were sleeping on their roost branch and a raccoon reached in, caught and chewed every chick's head off. It was such a horrible sight we haven't had to many chicken since. Possum are just as bad. :-x
