Captive skunks have been reported to adept well to diets of dry commercial dog and fruits and vegetables.

Only lactating and young growing animals should be fed ad libitum. In the summer, 2 to 4 ounces/day of dry ration is adequate for adult animals. Due to their tendency to become obese in the fall, they should be feed only one to two ounces of food per day. They should be frequently weighted to adjust their food intake to prevent obesity. The normal adult weight is 10 pounds.

Handling
All pet skunks should be anesthetized prior to handling. This minimizes the likelihood of bites and scratches, and avoids scrutiny by the Public Health Department. A handler wearing thick leather gloves can restrain the animal by the nape of the neck for injections.

Reproduction
Mephitis mephitis are usually monestrous and mate in February or March. Overt signs of estrus are slight. Her vulva swells slightly and exhibits a mild mucus discharge. Estrous females are receptive to males until either pregnancy or pseudo-pregnancy occurs. At this point they become very aggressive toward males and females alike. Lactating females are also aggressive and require individual housing.

Females should be housed in an all-female facility during pregnancy since the presence of a male in an adjacent cage may distress a female, resulting in abortion, stillbirth, or postpartum loss of the litter due to poor mothering. The pugnacious behavior increases during pregnancy and lasts until weaning. The gestation period is 62-66 days, with parturition occurring in mid-May. The litter size ranges from 4 to 10, with a mean of 4 per litter.

Neonatal Growth and Development
The newborn animals are pink and wrinkled in appearance. However, the characteristic black and white dermal pigmentation is present. By 8 days, some animals are able to emit musk when disturbed. The eyes open within 18-28 days. Associated with open eyes are several behavior changes including increased aggression, directed spraying, a marked decrease in vocalizations. By day 32, they are very likely and capable of directed musk emission when handled. The teeth erupt by day 34-40 and the young begin to eat solid food. Weaning is usually completed by 8 weeks in small litters and 10 weeks in large litters. By 4 to 5 months of age, the litter mates must be separated. They probably continue to grow slowly until they reach their adult weight at 10 months of age.

Descenting
At 6 to 8 weeks of age, the skunks are better able to undergo an anesthetic episode, and the musk glands are less likely to rupture. Animals older than 8 weeks have larger glands which are more difficult to remove. The procedure commences by grasping the neck of the musk gland near the papilla with a hemostat. Grasping the papilla directly with a hemostat may result in its removal, making removal of the gland very difficult. Once the neck of the gland is grasped, slight steady traction is applied so that the pink muscle layer can be scraped away from the shiny, white musk gland. Alternately, a circular incision around the base of the papilla to free it from its cutaneous connection may be performed. The muscle tissue is scraped away until the gland is free.

Removal of the anal sac in skunks under 8 weeks with enlarged glands is accomplished by inserting a 22 gauge needle into the neck of the gland and withdrawing as much of the yellow fluid as possible with a 6 cc. syringe. Reducing the size of the gland facilitates its removal.

The surgical site is left open to drain. No other post operative care is required.

Musk
The principle compound in skunk musk is butyl mercaptan. It is a sticky liquid that can be projected accurately up to 12 feet. Clinical signs of being sprayed are temporary blindness, nausea, convulsions, loss of consciousness and burns of the skin. The mercaptan can be made soluble, harmless and odorless by strong oxidizing agents such as the alkaline sodium or potassium salts of halogens.

Clorox oxidizes the mercaptan to sulfate or sulfone, removing the odor by breaking sulfur completely free from the carbon compound, which is odorless. The carbon compound, sulfate or sulfone, are water soluble and can be readily removed by washing.

Immunizations
Skunks are susceptible to several viral diseases of carnivores. These animals should be immunized using a scheme similar to the dog and cat, commencing at 6 to 8 weeks of age.

The maintenance of skunks as household pets by the general public should be emphatically discouraged by the veterinary profession due to their pugnacious behavior and their ability to inflict serious injury via bites and scratches. There is a lack of an approved vaccine for routine rabies vaccination. The lack of a common sense approach by Public Health Officials with regards to skunk bites and scratches usually results in the death of the pet when humans are injured.
The Striped Skunk has been the species most often maintained as a pet and a research animal. Accordingly, most of the information discussed below applies to the Striped Skunk.

Most pet skunks share the same environment as their owner. The animals may be placed in a basket, a galvanized cage or an air kennel for housing. Almost all skunks readily adapt to a litter pan by the time they are purchased. Most owners usually allow their skunks to have supervised access to their entire premises. Adult skunks usually must be housed separately due to aggression. Siblings may be housed together until they are approximately four months of age. At this age, increased aggression and fighting require their separation.

Nutrition
Skunks in the wild enjoy a varied diet that is influenced largely by local availability of invertebrate and vertebrate food sources. Primarily insectivous, they feed on adult and larval insects, especially grasshoppers, grubs, crickets, beetles and wasp. Spiders are commonly taken as are toads, frogs, lizards, mice, gophers, and eggs of birds and turtles. Plant materials constitute only a small part of their diet, with fleshy fruits such as grapes, blueberries, peanuts, etc., being the dominate items taken