Late summer, early fall is an active time for skunks in Tennessee. There are chances you or your pet may have a regrettable encounter. On this edition of Agcast, experts at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture offer information for dealing with skunks and perhaps avoiding a smelly mishap. Hello, I'm Charles Denny.
This is Agcast, brought to you by the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. A cute little visitor appears smack dab in the middle of the lawn of a busy office complex in Knoxville, but be cautious about approaching in person. It's a skunk, beautiful black and white striped, but stay in your car and leave the windows up while observing. It's an active time for skunks, and with their habitat disappearing in some areas, smell happens.
I would say late evening is typically when you're going to see skunks this time of year, especially family groups. The females are one that is responsible for raising the young, which we call kids. And it's pretty typical to see them then and single file line behind their mother and kind of learning how to be a skunk. Chris Graves is with UTIA School of Natural Resources and got sprayed by a skunk himself at the age of 11.
Yeah, when they spray, they can literally aim. Sorry, I just got to laugh at this. I mean, I've been sprayed. I personally been sprayed and it was blinding.
It really was. So that's, you know, when I read that in textbooks and other literature, it's like, oh, yeah, I definitely experienced that. So they're sulfuric acid there and it can cause temporary blindness, but they can definitely aim that spray. And usually they blame for the ice, whether you're a predator or whether you're, you know, a human that they perceive as a predator.
Graves says skunks are an important part of our ecosystem and eat lots of insects. But if threatened, they can spray an oil from their musk lands. And it's not always that typical skunk smell. This is more like rotting eggs and burning tires.
And I mean, they can aim it up to, you know, about 15 feet. So they can let you have it. I'd say the morning signs, it's important to understand if a skunk looks like it's kind of playing the drums, you know, stamping its feet with a tail raised. I always tell people if you ever see a skunk that goes into the head, like a head stand or a head stand, you're in trouble.
It's too late at that point. Dr. Graves recommends you have no openings under your house or porch where skunks might nest. And don't leave pet food or garbage outside.
A number of skunks have been spotted in a particular Knoxville neighborhood. How do I know this? Welcome to my backyard. And it smelled like burnt tires.
It just covered everything. You couldn't get away from the smell. It was horrible. It came into the house.
It settled in the house. Introducing my lovely wife, Jennifer, a kind and compassionate nurse, but not a skunk fan. No, so I guess when I've been outside, you know, before, you know, they're just skunking your body and you can kind of smell that skunky smell. When they actually spray, it is so much worse.
We own a sweet greyhound named Winn, who's been sprayed by skunks twice this summer. We try to get the smell offer with various home remedies and pet store cleaners, but skunk, junk, lingers. And then the odor actually transferred to me. And I didn't think about wearing gloves, but it does.
It's an oil and it transfers to your skin. And it actually made me pretty sick feeling. I felt sick and I not only did my coworkers want me to leave, but I felt bad. So did Winn.
When she got blasted in the face, she reacted as if she had allergies, runny nose and watery eyes. Dr. Marcy Sousa is with the UT College of Veterinary Medicine. It's just going to take a while to get rid of the smell.
Yeah, and there are a couple of recipes I've seen out there and I've tried with, I've had a few of my dogs get sprayed. One of the recipes that I've seen that seems to work the best is if you take something like dawn dish soup and mix it with peroxide as well as baking soda. It's going to make almost like a soup with that and that tends to break down those oils that are sprayed on them and they will be quite a stinky for quite as long. Yeah, so potentially if a dog does get sprayed in the eyes, it can be really irritating.
So almost like getting pepper sprayed or may sprayed like a few riders get sprayed. It would be similar to that. Generally, there's probably not going to be any permanent damage. If you are concerned, it's definitely a good idea to reach out to your veterinarian to see, you know, do those eyes even examine.
You may need to flush them. If they get sprayed anywhere else in the body, it's probably not going to be a big deal though. They just stink. We can vouch for that.
If you do have a skunk snail in your home, a good thing to do is leave bowls of vinegar out to absorb the odor. We tried this at the Denny household and it seemed to work. For now, we need to be careful around and coexist with skunks. Skunks are just going about their lives, but they'll use their best defense mechanism if necessary and we might suffer.
And then really kind of as the days were on, it kind of started to take on a garlic eodor. I mean, so it kind of morphs into different things. None of it is good. So that, I don't know, it was just a bad experience and I never want to have it again.
Thanks for listening. I'm Charles Denny.