Regular readers of this site may remember my garden woes last year and the garden devouring groundhog story. The thing wiped out like 75% of the garden in 2 days. No real surprise, but they’re baaa-aaaaack. These things would be a TEOTWAWKI nightmare – DESTROYING your survival garden, leaving you …. foodless!
There’s are a few extensive groundhog holes in the woods behind the house. Will new groundhogs occupy an abandoned den? I kill one and they come back.
In any case, I wasn’t impressed to see one this year. I saw the little expletive sitting down on some concrete blocks I used from the concrete block raised bed garden I disassembled and grabbed the camera.
I didn’t have a shot opportunity, because my glasses were out in the car and I hadn’t dug my compound bow out yet. I had a camera shot opportunity, though. The camera lens reached out, making it look like I was closer than I actually was.
Warning: stop reading now if you don’t want to see that groundhog dead.
I have no interest in another massive groundhog induced garden loss like last year, so to supplement my watching eye, I set out a Havahart trap (again), to double my efforts, having something working 24/7. Last time I tried this for the groundhogs I didn’t have any luck. Instead I caught a raccoon and discussed the value a Havahart trap could offer in a food gathering survival situation. You set it and forget it, no need to expend countless calories and time in search of game, just check the trap once a day and you might have fresh meat, meat you can keep fresh until needed.
Did I catch the groundhog this time? No, I think they’re too smart. Instead I caught THIS:
Awwww, ain’t that little skunk some cunnin’ …. not really. I found it there in the morning as I was on my way to work. What do you do with a trapped skunk on your way to work? Nothing, you wait until you get home to deal with it. I searched the internet and asked friends what to do. Some said the skunk needs to raise its tail to spray and won’t in a Havahart trap, because there’s not enough room. As you can see, there’s enough room for this little skunk. Another said I should just fill a crate with water and set the whole trap in it, drown the thing to avoid the smell. That seemed to cruel.
When I came home I changed my clothes and held up a large tarp as I approached the trap. Seeing a wall of tarp coming, the skunk sprayed. It either hit the tarp or close to it. The smell was nasty. I covered the trap and opened the door. The skunk scurried into the concrete blocks for protection. It looked pretty tired. While I wasn’t sprayed with a direct hit, I definitely stunk, my clothes in particular.
The point is, if it WAS a SHTF survival situation, I could have drowned the skunk for tender skunk vittles. Mmm hmmm, good … I guess … maybe …
As for that groundhog, he ran into the concrete blocks for protection, too; but it wasn’t enough ….
– Ranger Man
25 comments
That really sucks, the being sprayed part especially. I cannot remember any advice which avoided a spray eventually – maybe an on-line trapping website could offer some assistance?
If you haven’t read a blogger named Brigid’s account of de-secenting her dog after being sprayed by skunk, you are missing something – Funny!
How about a .22 from long range?
Heh – this. Right here.
OTOH, you eventually have to walk over and empty the thing. While you won’t get sprayed directly, you will have a stench to deal with.
I’m with Jarhead Survivor. I’d just pop the puppy from distance, although a pellet rifle in my case. Yeah, it’s going to stink, but it’s better than being sprayed.
I have had both groundhog and skunk destroy my garden and almost my home when my shepherd got sprayed 3x by skunks and then ran into the house. A mixture of 1 bottle hydrogen peroxide/plus 1/4 cup liquid dish detergent and 1 cup water to scrub the dog down works like a charm. The mixture neutralizes the protein and oil in the skunk spray. As for the %$#& groundhog, my garden was completely destroyed by one last year. This year I have sprayed my plants with a vanilla/mint/water base and put wind chimes, colorful pin wheels, and tin pie plates on stakes in the garden. Ground hogs are timid and hate the sounds and smell. Oh yeah, a fence around the garden isn’t hurting either. Apparently they are just moving on to unprotected vegetable gardens. It’s working for me. Your garden my look like a circus, but who cares? It’s worth it!
Interesting.
If you shoot it, don’t shoot it in the head. I shot one in the head several years back and I think it sprayed almost every drop of juice it had. The area stinks for quite some time. So you’re eventually faced with braving skunk spray or waiting several days to experience rotting skunk carcass. You lose either way.
I did a quick Google search, and I see similar reports of skunks spraying when shot in the head. It sounds like a lung shot would be a better option if you can manage to pull it off.
One of the neater methods I ran across in my five minutes of due diligence was “putting them to sleep”. Spray the cage with starting ether or something that produces a lot of fumes. They fall asleep and you can dispatch/remove them. I thought poisoning might work after reading this, but some poisons cause muscle spasms which might make it spray and if the poison isn’t strong enough the skunk will become very disoriented and probably randomly spray while in a stupor.
@N.D. I have never thought about using ether in a situation like that. I’ll try it next time. The last time I was faced with a skunk in a cage I approached him with a pressure washer and sprayed him down as he released his toxic cloud. There was still a little stink, but most of it fell to the ground with the soapy water. Next time I think I’ll try to slap a big cardboard box over the cage, then squirt the ether through a small hole.
Rangerman, have you ever eaten skunk? Has anyone? I suppose I’d try it in a desperate situation. But can you skin one without opening the scent glands? I hope it never comes to such desperate measures.
Yukon
I haven’t eaten skunk… and don’t have any desire to try it! (Sorry guys no recipes for this one!) But I imagine you could process one without cutting into the scent-glands. I think it would take some SERIOUS knife-skills, but if you can skin/gut a deer without cutting into the meat, or rupturing the bladder/bowels I am willing to bet that as long as your careful it could be done!
Aren’t skunks carriers of rabies and other nasty things? I don’t think I’d want to eat one.
I trap skunks in my garden give them 2 or 3 days to get used to you and they wont spray you I also gave them to my neighbor and his folks come up from mexico and they eat them they say they cure artheritis and the likes I have been sprayed use 50% peroxide with 50% cider wash down works real well
IT sounds stupid, like a gimmick, but hv you seen that comercial on TV about the sonic pest things that goes in ur garden? ITs green and runs on btteries but it has a solar panel on top too. I am always sceptical about such things but we got one and it works. I have cats and they love to scratch in the garden and leave little unwanted surprises. This thing keeps that cats (and other critters ) OUT! they wont get in the garden and they they wont stand too close to it on the perimeter. As soon as we put it out, we could observe thier displeasure. when they get too close they get a foul look on thier face and move out of its range. I think it is ultrasonic and only the critters can hear it, but I know they dont like it. It works, garden is doing great and no critter issues(PS, I live in a critter rich environment!)
That pressure washer story has me cracking up, Skunk is pretty good for those who are interested. As for dispatching them, I think you have to get them in the right mood, some head shots put them down odor free, others don’t.
Yep…forgot to mention that bystanders were rolling on the ground laughing themselves to tears during the whole affair. When I opened the cage, the skunk could have running lessons to Secretariat.
Here is another recipe,
Mix a large bottle (32 oz) of hydrogen peroxide (the kind you get at a drug store in a brown bottle) with 1/4 to 1/2 cup baking soda and a few drops of liquid dish soap. Put on gloves and sponge the mixture on the animal, keeping it away from the eyes. It should take less than 5 minutes. Rinse the animal well and check the pets eyes for redness. This recipe came from an Emergency Animal Clinic and has worked very well on my dogs.
Lung shots are supposed to keep the critter from building up the internal pressure to spray, according to Buckshot, see his site for gear and training for survival trapping — http://www.snare-trap-survive.com/
I heard that, too; but a lung shot on a skunk isn’t necessarily easy, unless you want to get too close.
When I was growing up, I would spend my summers on the family farm in Maryland. We (my brothers and I) used steel traps, set at each hole of the ground hog den for several days in a row. To my amazement we caught and killed quite a few ground hogs. At one point, raccoons were raiding the corn and all we did was set up about 10 traps around the still standing stalks in the immediate vicinity of the area where the raccoons had attacked the night before and caught 5 raccoons as well and ended the problem.
These were small 3-5 inch pressure spring toothless steel traps. The traps did not require bating, they were simply placed in the known paths of the critters. Many municipalities have banned steel traps.
I should’ve thought of that – traps outside the holes … hmmmm …
My grandfather was a trapper and used to use these traps for small game. If I remember right they were like #2 traps or something like that.
The attached link shows pictures of the traps we used, although we used ones my dad bought in the 1940’s. He trapped muskrat for their pelts.
http://www.fntpost.com/Categories/Trapping/Traps/Long+Spring+Traps/Bridger+Long+Spring+Traps/
It occurs to me that owning a dozen of these traps in various sizes may not be a bad idea.
oh funny stuff… boy the skunk incidents we’ve had over the years…
but the comment about “keeping the animal for fresh meat later” made me remember a story that i read or someone forwarded to me a couple years ago… i saved it because it was so funny… so i’ll share here…
i did not write this and i don’t know who did – but i hope you enjoy it and laugh as hard as i did reading it back then… (and even now reading it again it is still funny)
—-
A Taste For Deer Meat
An actual letter from someone who ranches. He writes well and tried this: Author unknown – (for good reason)
I had this idea that I could rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it. The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport it home.
I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope. The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. They were not having any of it. After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up– 3 of them. I picked out a likely looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me. I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold.
The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation. I took a step towards it, it took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope .., and then received an education. The first thing that I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope.
That deer EXPLODED. The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope and with some dignity. A deer– no chance.
That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined. The only upside is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals.
A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope.
I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slow and painfully somewhere. At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual.
Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer’s momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in. I didn’t want the deer to have to suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder – a little trap I had set before hand…kind of like a squeeze chute. I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope back.
Did you know that deer bite?
They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when … I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist. Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head–almost like a pit bull.. They bite HARD and it hurts.
The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective.
It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds. I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now), tricked it. While I kept it busy tearing the tendons out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose.
That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day.
Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp. I learned a long time ago that, when an animal –like a horse –strikes at you with their hooves and you can’t get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape.
This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy. I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run. The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head. Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down.
Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head.
I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away. So now I know why when people go deer hunting they bring a rifle with a scope to sort of even the odds.
All these events are true so help me God… An Educated, Bruised and Bleeding Rancher
That was an awesome story. Don’t know if it’s true or not but it was a great read! I laughed out loud through most of it.
Anonymous- THAT WAS HILARIOUS!!! I needed a good laugh after the day I had! (Had to go patch up one of my BRILLIANT friends who though poking a water snake with a stick, while standing 3′ away from it in knee-deep water was a good idea! I imagine he felt similar to the rancher in your story! Luckily it wasn’t poisonous… though it did inject a serious dose of venom directly into his pride!)
Ranger Man- An easy way to get the reeking mess of skunk-spray off your skin/hair is to simply pour tomato juice on the area that was hit and scrub well with a washcloth, as for the clothes… Fire-pit??? You can also add some lemon juice into the tomato juice, the additional citric acid will help to break the chemical bonds of the spray a little quicker… and you will smell like a “Bloody Mary” afterward, BIG improvement over skunk-ass!
If you just get some of the spray on your hands or other exposed skin, a simple piece of stainless steel rubbed on the skin while immersed in cool/clean water will eliminate the problem. This trick works for almost any smelly substance that gets on your skin. It works because the stainless steel being rubbed on the skin breaks the chemical bonds of whatever compound is on you, the water simply washes the chemicals away so they cannot adhere to your skin again. This is a tried-and-true method that I learned from a Certified Master Chef after our fish-processing class. The best part about this method, is that you can use it for delicate skin such as your face or eye-lids, and it doesn’t require any harsh chemicals. The other major benefit is that a single piece of stainless steel will work thousands of times, literally until it is completely worn away to nothing (your skin would be gone LONG before it would stop being effective!). There are some products on the market, usually found in kitchen stores, that are basically an oval shaped piece of S.S.; However a spoon or any other stainless steel will work, just be careful not to use anything with a sharp edge (Yeah I know common sense… but I told someone about this trick before and they used a freaking paring knife! Wound up having to stitch up the gash he put on his wrist!).
As far as eating a skunk, I have never tried it, and will do my best to find other food options if possible! If you are willing to give it a shot, make ABSOLUTELY sure that you cook the meat COMPLETELY. I would recommend cooking it almost into oblivion! The problem with utilizing any scavenger for food (possum, coon, buzzard, coyote, etc.), is the fact that they are scavengers. Because of their very nature, their muscles, organs and everything else is likely to be chock-full of bacteria… NOT GOOD for a survival food! Also make sure that you avoid eating ANY of the nervous system parts (brain, spine) and glands. These will likely harbor any number of diseases and could cause serious complications for you. I would also suggest burning-off the fur before you gut/process the animal, this is again because of their nature as a scavenger. They will likely be playing host to fleas, ticks and other nasty critters. DON’T TAKE CHANCES… ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE EATING IT TO SURVIVE! If you have to resort to eating skunk, you probably won’t have ready access to medical help if you need it!
My grandpa used to talk about trapping in the Ozarks where he grew up and once in awhile he’d get a skunk. He did this as a kid in the early morning and would sometimes go to school (the one room variety, he was born in 1909) smelling a bit skunky! But I guess the skins were worth something or he wouldn’t have done it. Mostly he was after coons.