Skunk Removal

Ah, the striped skunk. For the adults growing up in the 70’s and 80’s this species was iconized by Pepe Le Pew. Warner Bros. Few wild animals are as docile, yet as feared as this potentially smelly opportunistic omnivore. Skunks in our part of Sacramento County are typically to blame for grubbing in peoples yards. If they had a choice of food. Far above any other option they would choose grubs.

Oftentimes left unbothered for a year or so you would end up with a far greener yard. They will systematically and with great precision carefully remove every grub they can find. Because of this sometimes trapping them mid summer becomes a battle of wits and a prayer. Hopefully we can set a trap directly over their den hole (positive set).

The problem with allowing them to live in your yard is often more than what your dog might do, or what another person’s animal might do as they lie under your shed or in addition. That is to spray a most noxious and tear inducing musk. Just this last year we pulled several of them out of a family room addition crawl space that took us several weeks to finally permanently remove the smell from.

Skunk Spray Odor Control

By nature they normally aren’t aggressive animals. They are so confident in their smell that we affectionately call them the “surfer dudes” of the wildlife kingdom. They have more of a “dude back up or i’ll spray you” attitude than a go and attack someone mentality. The one exception to this rule is mating season. This is February in our neck of the woods. The males loaded with testosterone are rather grouchy, and the females in full heat are quite desperate. Because of this night time fights and mating can happen under your deck, by your hot tub, and occasionally under your addition causing a fairly complicated odor problem.

This of course brings me back to Pepe Le Pew. Valentine’s day to me always means skunks and mating. We’ve caught up to 15 of them in one small backyard simply because a female had been present and every male around came to court her.

Skunk Nesting In Home

As spring comes to Sacramento County, a new drama develops. Your single skunk you see once or so a week wandering through your neighbors yard soon becomes a mother and upwards of 6 babies. All faithfully following mom, yet all very capable of squirting your dog,or cat, as they approach a very protective mother and babies.

They are very good mothers and due to this fact have a very low mortality rate. Meaning oftentimes all of the babies survive. They will also stay with mom (which means they will stay under your deck) for the entire year, until mom goes into heat again and then they are pushed out.

Professional Skunk Trapping

Our most common calls are during mating season (February) yet all spring and summer we are inundated with those that were accidentally trapped by homeowners with a cage trap set for their garden raiding woodchuck. And, of course no one wants to walk up to that cage. If you are ever in this situation don’t hesitate to have us walk you through releasing them or have us do it for you for a service fee.

If your home or business in Sacramento County, California ever has an issue we would be happy to help. We offer services anywhere from just trapping to full deck and shed exclusions. We also offer a very successful odor removal service that will permanently remove any and all odors. It may take several treatments but our commercial strength oxidizers will eliminate the odor without leaving any cover scents behind. When we are done the only smell left would be a scent of your choosing, not a nasty citrus, or baby powder smelling cover scent.