Skunks as pets..

[Dom]

I have been looking for a very long time at the possibliblity fo a cute lil descented skunk .. I was originally looking into a small primate but there filthy manners after tehy hit maturity leeded me away from them..

I have heard only good things about them. NOw my question is skunk breeders? any idea?

If anyone has or knows someone who has a skunk .. any info or experience or just advice u have - I'd love to hear.

Ciao
Dom

c'mon .. I need atleast one mammal!

[ReptiZone]

I dont think you will find any breeders concedering that it is against the law to breed and sell any wild life that is native to your land.

EX: calafornia banded king snake in calafornia you can not buy them in any store and you can not sel them for a profit.

I also think that keeping a skunk has ben out lawed for quite some time now I might be wrong thow

best bet go hunting with a risk free snare and catch a WC baby and contack a vet that you trust and pray that he/she will not rat you out.

[beth wallbank]

Hey ya Dom
I had a pet skunk as a child living in Northern Ontario outside Kapuskasing. Don't remember alot, but I do remember it not living in a cage what so ever, and my Mom had siamese cats at the same time and they were all free roaming together. He was desecented of course, but I do remember there being a bath time much like a decented ferret.
As for finding one, On the other site beginning with K.......
under the exotic animal site, there are several people that breed the small mammals, primates, squirrels, coons, etc,.... and I think that they may be your best bet to start your search with. There is also some guy that lives in the Kamloops area in BC here, that always has primates for sale, the last one being a lemur, and a few squirrel monkeys. If you look ay www.buysell.com under the bc edition, you might find his ad there.
Good luck in your search.

[BWSmith]

I used to have a pet skunk. They will dig into anything and can get in the tightest places. He like to hang out befind my dishwasher. Mine generally ran laps around the house for a few hours, then took a nap on my lap. Very cool pet, but you have to be ready for a nocturnal scavenger. Easy to litter box train at least. If you get one, be sure to get one that is as young as you can get it. They are very stubbrn and very intelligent. The funny thing is that the recommended way to catch them is by the tail. They have a very thick tail that can support their weight very easily. Mine seemed to like it. Great fun to play with. They need constant deworming and alot of attention. Be sure to watch their water intake. If they drink too much water it can throw them into siezures.

I dont think you will find any breeders concedering that it is against the law to breed and sell any wild life that is native to your land
At least here in GA, we cannot have black and white skunks Because they might be wild. We can ony have morphs like albino or caramel or silver.

best bet go hunting with a risk free snare and catch a WC baby and contack a vet that you trust and pray that he/she will not rat you out
I think that is a horrible and illegal idea. We catch enough hell about herps. Exotic pet trade gets just as much. We have to refrain from being illegal and keep it legit. Also, I assume you have never dealt with a wild skunk.

[V.hb]

Iam pretty sure there are more than one type of skunk going around, other than the native species we have here. I have seen them as pets before.

If you want some sort of primate or marsupial why not try sugar gliders? They are dirty, but being small they are easy to clean if you do it properly, live long lives and they become pretty good captives in most cases.

You could also go for a ferret or something.

*edit*

I Agree with BW. Snaring any wild animal is a terrible thing to do. You may as well run one over on the highway. talk about wildlife destruction!! More advice would be work with a wildlife center, or volunteer to take in orfaned skunks, some cannot be re-released into the wild due to deformaties etc, and you could probably have a "legal" animal there, and possibly descent it..as for the ones that do go back to the wild... No they arent decented but hey, thats half the fun right there! :)

[BWSmith]

I had a Sugar Glider too. Great pet!

[ReptiZone]

best bet go hunting with a risk free snare
notice woh I said risk FREE

you guy's are throwing snare way out of proportion I should have said trap maby.

but catching and decenting a skunk is no wors then going and catching a garter snake or rattel snake and reforming it to a 10-20 gallon tank lets be realistic here.

[V.hb]

chondro dont take that the wrong way. Trap or snare same thing really, removing it from the wild is pretty unfair!! our country needs its wildlife! Yes i agree, WC is WC I dont agree with any of it unless its acquired with intentions on breeding CB. Sorry if you misunderstood me, i didnt imply that YOU were doing this or promoting it. I know it was only a suggestion.

[V.hb]

Hey BW, they are pretty cool arent they? Our pair has succesfully copulated and the female is now carrying a baby! :)

[BWSmith]

There is a difference. A skunk is an intelligent mammal. Wild skunks can be VERY agressive. This is not an animal that will be caged. Ever seen how destructive a wild coon can be? Throw that in your house and leave for the day. Skunks have been captive bred for generations. They still retain alot of their instincts, but they are more along the lines of domesticated. And lets not overlook the legal spect.

[OttawaChris]

I know that they are intelligent pets and are suposed to be very good pets if kept properly. They are against Ottawa bylaws... but then again what isnt right?

Here is a good site for info Dom... http://centralpets.com/pages/critterpages/mammals/ferrets/FER4720.shtml

[aqua_demon]

I have been very intrested in buying a pet skunk but evryone ive talked to say that they naturally carry rabies i thought this to be untrue as so many ppl keep them as pets but i dont know is this true or false?

[Zoe]

My mother had one a while ago - said it was decent. But yes they are illegal.

Zoe

[Dom]

tx for all the inputs...

I am actually looking to get a permit for it.. Ill try anyway... and if I can't .. ill try to get it through the zoo wich could work to my advantage. Thanks for all the input.

BW .. the water intake.. i never read that anywahere.. mind explaining it to me? What is too much water?

.. I love skunks.. and primates.. sugar gliders don't interest me at all .. great sugg. but not for me..

This is gonna take a lot of time to aquire though .. but hopefully someday.

[Mardy]

I think you just want a reason to stop showering.

MArdy

[Mardy]

Oh, Imagine your pet skunk digging and eating his way through your shoe box rack.(just a word of caution)

Mardy

[eldadevoz]

I would not catch any wild skunk! They can carry rabbies and they do....have seen a lot of this in Massachusettes. There is no way to tell whether a wild animal has rabbies until it gets sick and dies from it and then they examine the brain. Besides, babies are quite capable of spraying as any adult! lol So, you wouldn't catch me doing it! lol I'll bet there are breeders out there with baby skunks available? Don't really know, I did have a friend who had a pet skunk though. They were still a bit smelly even thought they were descented. He was aggressive too.....he used to chase me right out of the room! lol They can have a pretty nasty bite too! Another reason to raise a captive breed one from an infant. Have you thought of a hedgehog? I've heard squirrils are pretty cute...

[Dom]

lol tx guys..

MArdy .. You brign up a very very alarming point... hmmm ... its true about there very curious nature .. and biting nature.. hmmm .. Now that u put it that way .. I am contemplating ..

Tx for the sugg. Elda but I am not a small rodent fan .. or marsuipial either..lol skunks that the one that attracted me or monkeys .. although I have heard only bad thing about primates as pets so i have decided to steer clear..

[Emily-Fisher]

Get a pigmy hedgehog! They are adorable! And I my friend is selling them right now ;)

[Dom]

tx for the suggestion severyone.. but rodents are not pets to me! I am not getting anything else then either a sknk or .. well nothing lol

[Pixie]

This has been an interesting thread to say the least!!!

I've always dreamed of having a pet skunk since I was 12 years old when a french movie called "Bach et Bottine" came out. A kid movie with the lead actress loving animals, having her own little zoo and having a skunk as her closest pet.

I had heard here and there that they could be domesticated but never learned more about it. What's funny is that I was talking to a good girlfriend of mine a few months ago about weird animals and she told me her dream pet was a skunk. Lo and behold this thread comes up!

Now the freaky this is, after doing a few internet searches of exotic pets and small furries is that I found something else that's been a dream of mine. This may sound really weird but since I have seen my first, I have fallen completely in love with these buggers and think they're a riot. And theorhetically, it seems like a wild animal that would acclimate to domestication fairly well, anyways, I've always dreamed of having one of these crawling around my home. So what is it?

A sloth!

I always imagined filling my home with small trees, vines and lots of vegetation. Then having my animals well displayed through out my home. Having a sloth lazing around just sounded like the perfect addition to this dream.

I can't believe they are sold as exotic pets! At first I was a bit excited but that quickly wore off. Obviously they are WC and it breaks my heart to know that they are taken from their proper homes. Just imagining what the poor animal would go through to get here and then being sorely dissapointed that it's not a rainforest, I can't do that. Plus one more sold, one more taken from the wild. I've read up as much as I can and even zoos don't seem to be able to reproduce them in captivity.

I guess I'm still getting over the shock of seeing them for sale!

Pixie

[Dom]

Very interesting Pixie... i just saw a Sloth recently at the bioDome in MTL .. those are HUGE primates!

The skunk and moneys are my dreams.. but the monkeys .. there too dirty and the skunk now.. well I am worried he wouldbreak into my snake cages.. so until I have an other room for him or some kind of arrangement .. I think it will now have to wait..