I’ve run into one skunk in my years that showed signs of furious rabies a landowner told me where it was laying in a hay cut ditch. It appeared to be doing circles crawling around on its side while biting at the grass it’s the first time a skunk ever appeared rabid. Passive rabies would be harder to detect it looks more like it’s just sick.

Keep in mind sunlight and dehydration are effective in killing the virus freezing is not an effective way to kill the virus it prolongs it. I wear gloves of course but I semi dry my skulls before selling them to help kill any virus and it’s less of a mess if they thaw in shipping.

The virus lives in the brain stem so be careful handling and removing skulls or any fresh saliva it’s better to let the carcass sit a day or two if the weather permits that. Except for the stomach fluids not much will happen to a skunk in cooler temperatures if it has a layer of winter fat that even better. Belly down on cold concrete is your best friend then like other furbearers.

In Ohio, in the last 5 years, besides bats, only 7 raccoons and 1 cat have tested positive for rabies. The last human case of rabies in Ohio was in 1970.




You don't have much of a chance of catching rabies here. A great many things are more likely to hurt or kill you.

Keith

If you're trapping squirrels that have been in houses and taking them across town to release them, you aren't doing anyone a favor.
All that does is creates another problem for another homeowner and a wised up squirrel,
Squirrels are just a rat in a cuter outfit.

Back when I was a kid we had a pet skunk, my dad who was a truck driver was always bringing something back with him that he found along the road somewhere, baby ducks, baby pigs, turkeys that fell off the turkey truck and once a baby skunk, it hadn’t even opened its eyes yet, my ma raised it on a eyedropper till it was old enough to feed itself, when it got big enough my dad exiled it to the garage where she could come and go as she liked

Never was fixed and only sprayed once that I know of that was when my little brother who was maybe 6 at the time was walking down the sidewalk and the local bully a high school boy named Micheal got in front of him and stared pushing him around and teasing him, then apparently seeing Molly the skunk for the first time decided to grab her and throw her or something else, he had done similar things to several small dogs and cats, well Molly was standing there stomping her feet in warning and when he reached down to grab her she let him have it full in the face

Anyone that’s ever been sprayed knows what happened then

That boys father came stomping down and started yelling at ma about what had happened and what he planned to do, well ma reached down in her pocket and outs with her colt snubby hammer back pointed right at his nose and that man almost wet himself getting out of there

When dad got back in town he went down and had a heart to heart with that guy, I don’t know what he said but those people moved out shortly after

Molly lived in our garage five maybe six years and then one day she just was gone, don’t know what happened she just was gone, maybe she died and ma or dad just quietly buried her but who knows

She was a (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) of a pet though one of the few wild animals that was almost as good as the crow we had for several years