On February 21, 2006, I took Henri (my otherwise glowingly healthy, not quite 6 year old boy) to see his regular vet. At that time I knew of no other skunk vet in my area, and she came recommended from the reptile store where I discovered him. He was my first baby, and I was a neurotic over him! When I brought him home, I was a helicopter mom; I agonized over all my choices regarding his care (as best I could anyway with the limited and conflicting information that was available to me at that time). All of a sudden one day, I noticed he had a slight limp and needed to be sure he was O.K. She took x-rays and concluded that he had “a touch of arthritis in his right knee”. She gave me two different medicines and the option to choose. One was Torbutrol, which she explained was a narcotic, and the other was Metacam / Meloxicam, an “anti-inflammatory”, which she likened to “you or I just taking a Tylenol”. Naturally the narcotic sounded dangerous, and an unnecessary over-kill, so I picked the Metacam, comfortably believing I chose the safer option. I started him off very slowly and even gave him HALF of his prescribed dosage. He seemed to improve and I continued him on the Metacam, again keeping the dose at less than half of what she prescribed. When I took him back for a follow up visit, she was pleased with his improvement and […]

I am an owner of a boy and girl skunk, both brown and white, and about 8 years old now. Their names are Gizmo and Molly. I was a very naive new skunk owner 8 years ago when I bought one from a pet store and adopted another as a friend. Both skunks were about 3 months old when I got them and full of that cute but really annoying baby skunk energy. They were completely nuts and I actually thought about getting rid of them as I felt completely overwhelmed everyday. Then I decided I would not be one of those people that gives up on family just because it got hard. My pets have always been family to me. I had stumbled upon another skunk owner website that looked like it had all the information I needed to raise a perfectly healthy skunk, but I was very wrong, especially when it came to diet. This particular site a encouraged a mainly vegetarian diet ( peas, carrots, other assorted veggies, berries, nuts, and CHEERIOS….yes.. CHEERIOS). My skunks were always remarkable lazy after reaching about 8 months old, I had heard this was normal so was never too worried about it. They would come out for meals and the occasional lap around the house, but that was it. They did occasionally play together and had very big personalities, but just mostly just slept all the time. When Molly turned 6 her health took a sudden turn. She began missing meals, […]