Giving a Wild Skunk a Bath! ^_^

Giving the "snunk" a bath 😄 He is affectionately called "snunk" for now. He was a very good boy and though he didn't like the water much at first and tried to get away, he quickly settled when he felt the warmth. He allowed a lather, rinse, and repeat. His tail had to be hand washed twice to get the dirt out of it. Now he's so soft and smells as good as a stinker can smell. Afterward, he was such a baby and loved being cuddled in the warm towel and was falling asleep. 😄

He was taken over to rehabber Sarah's last night for a visit and she agrees that he had to have known people before in some way. He must have been a rehab baby before or maybe someone else raised him and let him go. I've had many dealings with wild skunks before, and even picked up and held a baby skunk last year that I rescued from the storm drain. I've only ever been sprayed once. I've never had one bite me. But for an adult or juvenile skunk, at least they will normally stamp their feet at you and warn you by raising their tail. This little guy doesn't do any of that, but admittedly he hasn't been feeling well, which is why he was rescued. I held him last night and Sarah cleaned out gunk from his eyes and then cleaned his face, and he didn't like the baby wipe on his snout and he fussed a little, but still he didn't try to bite at all. At least we know at this point that he wasn't poisoned, and he doesn't have rabies or distemper or anything. I've changed his most likely diagnosis to MBD, because he is exhibiting the signs of arthritis and possible bone malformations and microfractures that have previously healed that are consistent with MBD. Which means, bottom line, that it makes it much more likely that he was being held in captivity by a human or at least fed by a human who didn't have a firm grasp of their nutritional requirements and was giving him some things that were deficient. A skunk that doesn't get enough sunshine or food items containing enough calcium and Vit D, they are very prone to bone pathology issues, commonly known as Metabolic Bone Disease. In layman's terms it's the animal equivalent of osteoporosis or rickets. It's something I'm very familiar with, because it's very common in reptiles that aren't raised correctly too.

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