Killing a skunk without getting sprayed?

I would think a head shot with a .22LR would do it. It's humane too.

Supposedly if you cover the trap with a blanket, tarp, black plastic a skunk won't spray. You can take it somewhere else and kill it.

My first thought was, trap and shoot it in your neighbors yard. I think that would be much easier.

I have a friend that used to trap and inject them with ammonia, then remove the oil and sell it.

I, however, have never shot one that didn’t “let go”. Not really spray, but it came out anyway. Not a chance I would shoot one around my house.

When I was trying to get the armadillos tearing up the yard I trapped everything except one, up until I caught this guy. Then I put the trap up.



I did set strings up before hand to lift the lock and open the door. I held the sheet up over my head as I walked up to the trap and set it over it, so it couldn’t see me.

Supposedly works to transport them as well but I didn’t want to push my luck.

someguy2800 said:

Hey guys, my dog has gotten sprayed in the face by a skunk here at home twice in the last week and I've had enough of that so I set out some live traps. I am live trapping because my neighbor has a couple cats and a small dog that snoops around which I don't want to kill. I've killed a couple skunks with a pistol and one with a shotgun that I ran into while bird hunting and in each case they rolled around on the ground making a stink after being shot.

So my question is, if I catch this skunk is there a better way to kill it without stinking up the whole yard? I thought maybe shooting it in the head with a 223 might turn out the lights fast enough that it won't spray all over. What do you say?

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no

WrongHanded said:

I would think a head shot with a .22LR would do it. It's humane too.

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No, no, no, no

Fine Figure of a Man said:

Supposedly if you cover the trap with a blanket, tarp, black plastic a skunk won't spray. You can take it somewhere else and kill it.

My first thought was, trap and shoot it in your neighbors yard. I think that would be much easier.

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This is closer.

So I don't even count anymore but I'm pretty sure I'm over 100 skunks down, I've lightswitched them, all sorts of armaments to the head and or spine, their gonna spray, last one took the .223 to the junction of spine/skull at 15 feet, still sprayed up the barn. To date I have only found ONE way to kill a skunk without stink, learned it from some older gentlemen I'm very fond of (though neither are alive today). Cover the trap with a tarp or blanket, anything to completely conceal vision will work, set it gently in a stock tank of water.....NOT my idea of humane as I almost drowned once as a kid, but I have found no other stinkless kill method for skunk that's going to work every time.

Only trapped one skunk but it did not spray in the trap even as we walked up slowly and draped a towel over the trap. Transported it in the bed of a truck to the woods. It did not spray. When we opened the trap door the skunk came out and ran away, it was not spraying, just going.

When we unloaded on it with shotguns at around 20 yards, it sprayed. But, it wasn’t in our yard

horsey300 said:

no


No, no, no, no

This is closer.

So I don't even count anymore but I'm pretty sure I'm over 100 skunks down, I've lightswitched them, all sorts of armaments to the head and or spine, their gonna spray, last one took the .223 to the junction of spine/skull at 15 feet, still sprayed up the barn. To date I have only found ONE way to kill a skunk without stink, learned it from some older gentlemen I'm very fond of (though neither are alive today). Cover the trap with a tarp or blanket, anything to completely conceal vision will work, set it gently in a stock tank of water.....NOT my idea of humane as I almost drowned once as a kid, but I have found no other stinkless kill method for skunk that's going to work every time.

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Interesting. I thought of mentioning a large tub (inverted) and some inert gas. Helium or nitrogen should work fine. Carbon dioxide would work too, though possibly not as peacefully (mammals breathe harder to get CO2 out of the body). I guess I'd rather go like that than drowning.

WrongHanded said:

Interesting. I thought of mentioning a large tub (inverted) and some inert gas. Helium or nitrogen should work fine. Carbon dioxide would work too, though possibly not as peacefully (mammals breathe harder to get CO2 out of the body). I guess I'd rather go like that than drowning.

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Yup that'd work too I bet.

WrongHanded said:

Interesting. I thought of mentioning a large tub (inverted) and some inert gas. Helium or nitrogen should work fine. Carbon dioxide would work too, though possibly not as peacefully (mammals breathe harder to get CO2 out of the body). I guess I'd rather go like that than drowning.

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Fine Figure of a Man said:

Supposedly if you cover the trap with a blanket, tarp, black plastic a skunk won't spray. You can take it somewhere else and kill it.

My first thought was, trap and shoot it in your neighbors yard. I think that would be much easier.

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I just remembered another non humane but spray free method (though less reliable) taught at the time as an admonishment against litter, yogurt cups with a lil yogurt left in them will get trapped on a skunks head (at least the larger ones and they will wander around until some foreign object pulls it off or they starve to death (not endorsing this). Eta grammar.

Head shot. We used to road hunt skunks up at our cabin, near Mille Lacs. My mom would drive the back roads with the high beams on, and Dad and I would each sit on a fender of the old Buick wagon with a shotgun loaded with Trap loads. I gut shot the first few, and they'd spray and we'd have to go through the cloud of it.

entropy said:

Head shot. We used to road hunt skunks up at our cabin, near Mille Lacs. My mom would drive the back roads with the high beams on, and Dad and I would each sit on a fender of the old Buick wagon with a shotgun loaded with Trap loads. I gut shot the first few, and they'd spray and we'd have to go through the cloud of it.

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The fact that it was a Buick wagon tells me that was a long time ago.
If you did that now the 911 call would be epic.

In the OP. I've never shot a skunk that didn't spray.
I have hit them going so fast that I didn't smell anything until I slowed down.

horsey300 said:

Cover the trap with a tarp or blanket, anything to completely conceal vision will work, set it gently in a stock tank of water.....

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This .
Except just tie a rope to the trap beforehand , set up a board as a ramp into the bin of water. You don't get close. I relocated 9 skunks (to skunk heaven) from my 1 acre lot last year alone, they've been a problem here . I've been able to head shoot a skunk and it's a 50/50 if they'll spray, either way as long as I'm not getting it on me it , clears up outside in a day or two.

I shot a skunk from the bathroom window one time when I was a kid, head shot stone dead it still sprayed. The water thing should work, something over the cage does came then down. But if it already sprayed the dog maybe it tank is low, you could always drop it off at your mother in-laws.

The skunks on my place have always been good citizens so I've never shot one. I did accidentally live trap one once. I opened the trap and kept it open with a bungee cord. When I returned an hour or two later it was gone.

There doesn't really seem to be a good way to approach a live skunk. Fortunately, I never got one in a box trap and had to figure it out. It would seem to me the best way would to be to shoot it from distance (range is your friend) and then flip it in a hole, or cover it with some chemicals. Or both. A guy at a local gun shop a year or 2 back attempted to catch one in the parking lot by throwing a furniture blanket over it like a cast net. The whole venture was an epic fail and a series of bad decisions, the worst of which was bringing the furniture blanket back into the gun shop.

Live trap baited with canned cat food, covered with an old sheet or blanket, rope fastened to it. Drag it away from the house, and apply a head shot from whatever rifle you can hit a skunk in the head with.
#2 son successfully used this process when all the neighborhood skunks made his house the party house.
I think he got four.

I can remember my Dad telling me about running trap lines when he was a kid. He'd check his line in the morning before he went to school. He said that he could usually get a skunk with out it spraying him, and I don't think that he even carried a gun. Can't remember what he said tho

If a man had an old aquarium, aquarium air tube, and a can of ether he could put the critter to sleep very peacefully.

Tie a rope to the live trap, chuck the trap on the pond.

Many moons ago, when I was working on a post-graduate degree, I worked as head custodian for a small independent school district on the outskirts of Ft. Worth. Our elementary school had a terrible problem with skunks getting under the building, and animal control would put live traps under there. The city had 2 police officers and 1 animal control officer. One summer the animal control guy took vacation, and neither of the police officers wanted to get rid of the skunks. I was "deputized" (more like "duputized") to deal with the problem. The traps had a cord attached that allowed you to pull them out from under the building. I used my Winchester '06, loaded with shorts, stood back, and gave the stink kitties a head shot. About 50% of the time they didn't spray, but do the math. The cages went in the back of my truck to the dump for emptying, then got hosed off before being put back under the building. During that two weeks I had a skunk a day to deal with.

I can tell you how not to do it!

Way back in time when Dinosaurs ruled the earth,,,
A friend of mine called and asked if he could borrow a rifle,,,
Seems there was a skunk in his backyard and he wanted to kill it.

We were both young teen-aged boys at the time.

The only rifle I had ammo for was my British .303,,,
I said OK and he walked the three blocks to pick it up.

About 30 minutes after I handed him the rifle I heard it go off,,,
About 15 minutes later I stated smelling skunk through the front screen door.

The skunk was happily sleeping under a dead pickup in his back yard,,,
Bill lay down and put the muzzle about 6 inches from the critter.

He got a free week vacation from school for the stink,,,
I completely stripped the stock and refinished it,,,
I even soaked the metal in kerosene.

Ten years later you could still smell a tinge of polecat when you fired that old gal.

Aarond

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I have some experience with skunks. We've had them under the house at two different addresses and both times, it sucked. The last time one sprayed under the house and we had to fumigate it in the middle of winter. Cost us a $2000 closed cell foam mattress. I declared jihad on the local population and was astonished to have killed 19 in one year. I shot them every which way and they all either sprayed or "leaked". The only one that didn't spray was one that I live-trapped. My wife's cousin, who is a part-time trapper, came out and transferred it to a plastic bag and carried it off. He draped a tarp over the trap, then placed a plastic bag over the open end and I'll be damned if the skunk didn't walk right in it, because it was dark. I prefer to shoot them away from the house and just live with the smell. Anything is better than under the house.

Certain smells just stick around and have long lives. Others, you never forget.

One you won't forget is the smell of being gassed with CN or CS. As a supply NCO, I was responsible for my unit's masks. I put one on for a goof and immediately ripped it off, I could still smell gas inside it.

My encounters with skunks have all been peaceful, we each went our separate ways.

I don't think you can kill a skunk with any assurance that it will not spray. Many spray at the time of death, not part of any sort of conscious decision, but as an automatic response when the brain shuts down. I have a couple of videos showing this. You can move to 2:20 in the video to see the shot and then the subsequent spraying...