skunk advice please

[leesan]

Advice please..........

i recently bought home my little girlie skunk
she's approx 3 yrs old and came from a friend of a friend. her prev owner had kept her caged 24/7 as they had no time for her. so she came to me.
I don't want to keep her caged all the time so i've left the door to her cage open for her to come and go as she pleases. but she does'nt come out often - and when she does she doesn't wander around just hides under the table or behind furniture. i dont think she has been socialised so we're taking it slow and keeping her in the other room away from the hustle and bustle in the hope that she'll find her feet in a semi quiet place in her own time. When she's out she's very friendly and seems happy for cuddles etc but getting her out seems a bit stressful for her. she stamps her feet and tries to escape.
Can anyone offer me any advice on how to make her settle better / less stressful for her?
Or will she always be like this?

Luckily she is descented - she is by far not bombproof - i dread to think if she were fully loaded!

She;s just very skittish, have tried bribing her with food 2 get her out of her hiding places but as soon as we go near she stamps her feet.
help please

[xXFooFooLaFluffXx]

has she been spayed? as she will either need spaying or mating with..... i know if you have just got her this isnt the first thing on your mind but its something worth keepin in mind as if she isnt going to be mated with she will need spayin for her own health.

as for settling in, how quiet is your house hold? what other animals is she in contact with and did she come from places where she was with other skunks or not?

i was under the impression you already had a skunk/skunks for some reason.....

[Talk To The Animals]

Hershey hates being picked up and tries to run away but once you've caught her she'll snuggle in for skunky-cuddles. We don't think she was very well socialised as she was very shy when we got her.

Don't forget they all have individual personalities - maybe she isn't a very confident skunk.

Definately get her spayed ASAP if it's not already been done.

We found that one thing that made Hershey happier was making her feeding time more work for her. We got a kind of egg shaped plastic ball thing, weighted at the bottom, with a bowl inside and holes round the edge. We cut her food up small enough to fit through the holes and she had to tip the toy around to get the food to come out.

The other thing we found was that her eyesight wasn't that good. Compared to Oreo's, which is much better. Don't know if that was something to do with Hershey being kept in a cage for a while and not needing to see very far, whereas Oreo had much more room right from the start.

[leesan]

Originally Posted by xXFooFooLaFluffXx

has she been spayed? as she will either need spaying or mating with..... i know if you have just got her this isnt the first thing on your mind but its something worth keepin in mind as if she isnt going to be mated with she will need spayin for her own health.

as for settling in, how quiet is your house hold? what other animals is she in contact with and did she come from places where she was with other skunks or not?

i was under the impression you already had a skunk/skunks for some reason.....

she has been spayed already. Its not very noisy i dont think, just bout average. just us, daughter and dog and other skunk living here so dont think overly loud. But she hasn't met my daughter or the dog or other skunk as yet.
My other skunk has free rein norm but is temp barred from the room the newbie is in for time being (she is spayed also).
She came from a family with several dogs and cats and teenagers so assuming was quite a noisy house.

By sounds of it she quite similar to Hershey then, our original girl is very confident and wants / demands attention from anyone who enters the house, follows me everywhere into the bathroom loves a bath etc. But the new lass doesn't seem to want to no anyone. but then when you hold her she'll snuggle right in for loves.
Havn't introduced her to anyone bar me and OH atm, not dog other skunk and daughter, thought would be best to take babysteps.

[Nerys]

aww bless her...

whats the other skunk that you have>? as far as age and sex and so on goes?

with skunks, a lot of it seems to be about time, and patience..

the one thing i would say, is try introducing your other skunk to her sooner rather than later. Ichi was very unsettled here to begin with, but since i gave in and let her have free run of the place with Holly and Quanah, she has spent the last fortnight or so being shown where all the skunky delight places are in the house.. you could almost see quanah showing her about.. "this is the bathroom, this is the wash basket.. this is where we steal socks from" "this is the dvd unit.. this is what we shit behind to pee mummy off" "this is the bed, this is the food dishes.."

etc etc

she got on a lot better with the other skunks to show her round

hth

Nerys