What Attracts Skunks
Skunks are a complicated species. What attracts them to a property may not always be obvious. There are some fundamentals for keeping all wildlife and even rodents off your property. Not feeding them is a good start. Also not offering them water to drink from birdbaths and bird feeders. Do not leave food outside, feeding your pets outside and even taking the kids outside to eat their ice cream because you just clean the house is also dangerous. Each drop can attract all kinds of insects from ants to wasps. Skunks are especially problematic wildlife as well. They can spray with a chemical that can be smelled by humans at as little as 11 parts per million and can hit anything with pinpoint accuracy even from a very young age. This means if skunks are on your property you will know. They will spray simply to detract predators, even if there aren’t any and will often burrow under decks and sheds.
They may try to enter a crawl space but will not enter any high structure like an attic as they cannot climb. So skunks in your attic are not likely to ever happen. Sadly that is the only good news regarding skunks. They come to your property for the same reasons as other animals, to find food and water. However, if they find their favourite food, the skunk’s Turkish delight they will stay for the whole spring, the summer and into the late autumn to enjoy the insects killing your lawn. This is by far their favourite food and preference of female skunks feeding their young. You can see if you have these insects by looking at the lawn. No need to investigate deeply just look at it. Is there a lot of yellow grass? Is it sort of all connected in a patchwork? Then you have grubs and that is a guaranteed way to end up with skunks on your property.
The best way to deal with the situation is to prepare yourself for the spring that is the only chance you get to deal with the grubs and deter female skunks. You will need to use a machine called an aerator that punches small cylindrical holes in your lawn, this will do a great job of making it hard for the grubs to survive. You can then skip the nitrogen completely. Get a nice premium non-nitrogen fertilizer and use that. Then the final step is a domestic anti-grub pesticide treatment with a container, preferably, that attaches to a hose for better coverage. Do this every year at the start of the spring and you will never have skunks on your property again.
