This post will be about skunks, and I know few are interested in it save G&J. Tough.
Our skunks celebrated their third birthdays much like they do every day: with rough play, demands for food, and seeming to have more come out their back end then we put in their front end.
When we moved in to our new place, on moving day, our wonderful skunks managed to get into some planter bulbs that we had in an envelope in the kitchen. Being how they are, they shredded them and ate some (most likely). We packed them up and hauled them off to the new place, and they spent the first hour in our new home vomiting seven times between them. I'm not sure if it was the bulbs, the stress, or maybe they have the same thing I do where if you smell vomit you want to puke... so naturally we packed them back up and took an emergency trip to the vet.
Cramming them both into a single pet carrier (they do NOT currently get along AT ALL) was an adventure and resulted in about 15 minutes of skwaking and stomping from Aroma and Tobias looking out of the grate with a look that screamed "Get me out of here! She's crazy!!!" When they finally both got back into the exam room and had calmed down, she actually walked right up to Tobias, reached back, and slapped him across the head with her paw! The vet thought it was the funniest thing she'd seen in a while.
Anyway, it was fine, they're fine, but what was interesting is their weigh-in. Aroma had actually lost weight from the last time she had been in! She only weighted a little over 5 lbs. What was even wierder was Tobias, who clocked in at about 6.4! I was sure that Tobias was going to clock in at well over 10 lbs, but no! So we discussed altering the skunkie diet around here to try and put a little more weight on them. They weren't unhealthy, but they were constantly hungry (they're always hungry!), and having a little extra body weight is insurance for if they get sick or something.
So we've been feeding them more. a lot more protein, and a bit more of other stuff. It's worked wonders. I think we'll have to go back to the vet for a checkup, but Miss Aroma has put on a good amount of mass and isn't dwarfed by Tobias any more. She's still definitely smaller, but instead of looking like half his size, she maybe looks 85% or so. We've had to kind of scale their diet to respond to them individually, so we're still working on finding a good regular routine. Anyway, I thought you'd be amused that our meticulous attempts to make sure our skunks didn't get fat actually was quite successful, only more so than we intended.
