Should I Feed A Baby Skunk That I Found?

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There is something about baby animals that brings out the caring nature in the majority of people, and the natural instinct many people will feel if they find a cute baby animal such as a baby skunk is to try and help them. However, it is important that when people are trying to help that they understand what does and doesn't help the baby animal.



The First Steps You Should Take

Once a person picks up an animal that appears to be in distress or to have been orphaned, the chances of the animal surviving are quite slim, so it is important to try your best to reunite the skunk with its mother before you take any action. In many cases the skunk will just have wandered a short distance away from the nest, so your first action should be to take a step back and monitor the situation, and give the mother at least an hour to try and recover the baby, unless it is clearly orphaned and there is no hope of the mother returning to recover the kit.

What Is Safe For A Baby Skunk To Eat?

The first thing that you will need to consider if you are intending to feed the skunk is whether or not the food that you have available is suitable, and in the vast majority of cases, unless you have kittens or puppies in the house that are being fed with Esbilac, the answer here will be know. Cow's milk, pet food and blended food will cause significant damage to the animal, and some rehabilitators find that if they have been fed, then they will often be beyond saving.

What You Should Do For The Animal

The first step is to find your nearest rehabilitator, and then to see when you can take the baby skunk to that person so the animal can receive specialist help. If this is going to take some time, then the rehabber will often give you advice on how to warm and stimulate the animal to pass urine and feces, and may suggest that you try hydrating the baby skunk with a pedialyte solution. There are very few cases where the wildlife rehabilitator will actively ask you to feed the baby skunk, and the best option will always be to get the animal to them as soon as possible.


For more information, you may want to click on one of these guides that I wrote:
How much does skunk removal cost? - get the lowdown on prices.
How to get rid of skunks - my main skunk removal info guide.