We've got skunks living under our house at the ranch and need them gone! What kind of bait have you used? What kind of traps?
Any advice will be helpful...thanks!

I catch them in my Duke Dog Proofs with sardines around my corn feeders. Dog food or cat food works on the ones around my parents house in a live catch trap.

Jack Russell

Live trap with cat food. I tie about 30' of rope to the trap then after catch cover with a towel
and drag away from the house.

get a couple of large live traps, bait with marshmellows OR cat food if you don't have cats in your area.

Why try to not include cats? Very destructive vermin. I'd leave the skunks and trap as many cats as I could.

Haven't seen any cats at our place. but skunks are getting under the house and we can definitely smell them! Never seen them before this year and now seeing them all over the ranch! Gotta take some action. Had a dog get sprayed years ago...not pleasant. Thanks everyone. We have some Dukes traps - might try those. And will get some live traps as well.

you also need to be thinking about securing the location they are getting under the house! My dad used to get some welded wire with small enough openings that a skunk couldn't go thru the holes and put it in a semi-circle outside the openings going under the house with it leaned outward at the top. when the skunks would come out from under the house at night to go feed and/or breed, they could walk up the leaned outward welded wire but when they came to go back to their "den" they couldn't get back over the welded wire.

Skunks are easy to catch and tough to deal with later. Just stop a Tractor Supply and grab a couple box traps. Bait with tuna or wet cat food. Then a 22 or pellet gun into the brain pan. Do like OutdoorAggie said and tie a rope to the trap so you don't have to get real close when dragging it away. Just assume you'll have to deal with stink for a few days because they almost always spray the trap.

This works no smell. Set a trap with the gate locked open, tie it up. Put a can of cat food, the cheapest, out for two nights. 3rd night set the trap. Put a can of catfood mixed with 2 tbsp of Golden Maldrin. They won't spray before dieing.

Had a few under a shack on a lease I was on. The landowner just tossed mothballs under the house. Skunks left.

My pest control guy has his traps wrapped in thick trash bags, for two reasons he said. One if they spray, it keeps it contained, and two, the are calmer when they need to be transported.

They make some Rosen smoke bombs at tractor supply

I have trapped a bunch of skunks, and never had 1 spray, "0".. I just used a tarp or old blanket (had one of those U haul ones I could afford to loose), you could probably just use a canvas painters mat from Lowes, or old bed sheet (cloth doesn't make "wrinkle noise"). Slowly approach live trap with blanket held out in front of you and lay it over the trap, then grab the trap handle through the blanket and haul wherever. Being it is daylight by then, they welcome the dark "hole".

I also did like others mentioned and used dog food or cat food with a teaspoon of honey in a small tin, like sardine can. You can sometimes get a coon or possum as well, as they like that mix.

When they get under a house they will mate under there. During mating the male sprays. It's terrible. Had them under my house when we lived in the country until I put 4 boxes of moth balls under there. They moved out. Don't know where they moved to but after that I killed 6 in my yard in the next 2 weeks. No more skunk problem.

Ammonia will usually run them out too, if you can stand the smell.

works on coons to

I have a double wide mobile home and have had several episodes with skunks and was always able to catch em but had one last year that avoided everything i could think of and never did get em. once he or she moved out i did a better job sealing up the place. end of problem but i have my fingers crossed while typing this. lol