What do skunks eat?

I saw a young skunk in my neighbor's yard tonight, nose down, looking for something, like a bloodhound. Spent about 15 minutes doing that in the yard. In the lawn.

What was he looking for?

We have a good-sized container garden with many herbs, tomatoes, eggplants and peppers. He didn't touch them. At least, while I was watching.

Lee

Skunks are omnivorous, eating both plant and animal material and changing their diet as the seasons change. They eat insects and larvae, earthworms, small rodents, lizards, salamanders, frogs, snakes, birds, moles, and eggs. They also commonly eat berries, roots, leaves, grasses, fungi, and nuts.



And I heard they make GREAT pets....if you get their stick glands removed....just like a cat!

I had one as a pet when my kids were younger. They make great pets as they are as clean as a cat and as loyal as a dog. Now this assumes they have had the glads remove that make the smell. Young skunks will eat pretty much in the way of meats however you don't want to give them any thing greasy when they are young. It seems it takes them about a year for all their internal organs to position properly.

Now some other facts, they eat insects and with one as a pet you won't even see and ant with them around. They are also very near blind so when kept in a house as ours was they tend to stay and travel along the walls. This is also why you have to be careful hand feeding them as if you do you can get a pretty good bite due to the fact they eat by smell not sight. They easily train to use a litter box and have no real odor after they are fixed.

Major draw back to owning one is a short life span about 6 years and no veterinarian will treat them, at least none would in South Florida at the time I had mine.

A friend of mine had a pet skunk, but I can't remember for the life of me what it's name was.
She's an animal lover like me.
What I do remember is that the skunk was very gentle when I held it, and seemed even more gentle than a cat, or most cats that I've encountered.

They recently had a show about skunks, I think on Animal Kingdom. It was very interesting. They will probably show it again before too long.

Skunks obviously eat farts.

LOL! Thanks, Dee, for the info.

And others for the input.

And Buzz for the laugh.

Lee