A Job that REALLY Stinks: Skunk Farming

 


Skunks....

When one thinks about them, we usually think of either Flower from Disney's Bambi to the slinking animal that EVERYONE tries to avoid or have been sprayed by one and have been haunted (I myself have been sprayed and it does haunt me).  Most of us are lucky enough to only lucky enough to know skunk's smell just from a distance or to just smell a dead one on the highway.

With such animals being so notorious for their stench, why on earth do people both want their fur and even farm them for it!?

Skunk Farm in the UK (Legendary Dartmoor)
Any fur trapper can tell you that the most common animal they trap that are not the animals they're hunting for are skunks, since they are seen as not very cautious about traps as compared to other fur bearers.  And it turns out that when it doesn't go stinking up the place, skunk fur is quite a catch: it most soft, warm, durable and considered to be quite glamorous (provided that the skunks were mostly black with little to no white).  In fact, at one time, it was the second most harvested fur in the industry, after the muskrat.

There's even thoughts about "milking" it's spray to be used to deterring molesters!

And as anyone who has ever owned a skunk could tell you that skunks are quite easy to keep (once they are de-scented, had their spray glands removed).  This is because it is said that they can easily tamed (though selectively breeding for increased tameness was done), they could eat anything since they are omnivores, can be quite social, and are not picky breeders.  Along with that, they could be kept in open-topped pens with simple arched fences of 3.5-4 feet in height (as opposed to the solitary caging for other species, such as mink and foxes).  These pens were almost like small pastures to the skunks and they were said to even keep themselves occupied with eating the mice and insects (along with, as it was claimed, rabbits).

It was even considered

So with all of the these pros and relatively minimal cons, why is it not so popular now?


Skunk farming started around the late 1800s (there was even a skunk farm in England) and the demand for skunks was primarily strong in Europe.

However, after WWII, pelts with long hairs were considered unfashionable, the economy made purchasing fur coats (of skunks or otherwise)  too costly to do, and others would even blame labeling laws that made the skunk less popular.

Today, a single skunk pelt would be worth over 5 dollars, no more than how much your regular coffee would cost.


A bulletin about skunk farming

So, the next you complain about your job stinking, just know that your job is not farming skunks (both literally and figuredly).

 What do I think of the skunk farming?

Well, I would have to say that it is an interesting bit of the fur industry and would've have been fascinating to see them more elaborate comebacks (made a small one in the 70s, but other fashion trends beat it to it).  I also find it to be cool to see an animal that most people would hate or fear become a desired animal much like how livestock would be to us.



=REFERENCES=


  • http://www.truthaboutfur.com/blog/skunk-fur-forsaken/


  • https://www.farmshow.com/a_article.php?aid=6914


  • https://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/skunk_farm.htm


  • Lantz, D. E. (1923). Economic value of North American skunks. Washington, D.C. : U.S. Dept. of Agriculture


  • Seton, E. T. (1909). Life-histories of northern animals : an account of the mammals of Manitoba. New York City: Scribner. pp. 966-994




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tibial Hemimelia (TH) in Cattle

Image
  This was an old report I did for my Farm Animal Anatomy and Physiology class when I was in college and this got a pretty dang good grade in that class (I was struggling in that class).  So now, I present it here because it has excellent and educational information about Tibial Hemimelia (TH) in cattle.  Along with that, it's something to consider if you're interested in breeding cattle. Introduction A calf born with Tibial Hemimelia (photo from steerplanet.com) Tibial Hemimelia (TH) is a rare lethal physical defect that is inherited.  The symptoms of this defect are characterized by skeletal abnormalities, such as the tibia bone becoming twisted (not unlike that of a corkscrew), defects in organs, etc.  Although this genetic mutation does occur in several species (such as dogs and even humans), this article will focus on the tibial hemimelia in cattle. History Tibial hemimelia was first described in the 1950s, in Scotland (Young, 1951).  It has also been ...
Read more

What if American Prehistoric Megafauna survived? Pt. 1: Mastodon

Image
  "What if" Megafauna survived to modern times in North America (primarily USA) Ah, the megafauna of the Ice Age, some of the most fascinating and even terrifying creatures that not only roamed, but also shared the Earth with us in recent times.  Then, suddenly, they died off, leaving us pretty clueless and digging up their bones to learn about and marvel at them. However, when one learns about this wonderful animals, we sometimes ask these questions: What if they did survived? What if they didn't died out and survived along up to historical or even modern times? What would the ecology would be like? What would our relationship with the animals would be like? What kind of impact would they have on our view of the world? In this post series, I will be diving into what would happen if, somehow, the 13 Ice Age animals I have selected have survived whatever wiped them and have been able to survive to our times. I will talk about the general facts of these animals, the reasons...
Read more

A 'Mammoth' Question

Image
  (Discover Magazine) While watching philosophical debates by Captain Picard on the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" series, I was also reading some articles about the idea of bringing back extinct species of animals, the woolly mammoth in particular. For those who are not familiar with this, here's a short version of it:  You can't clone a woolly mammoth by using ancient tissue (for you need an intact cell, as opposed to just DNA, to fully resurrect a woolly mammoth) since even the most intact tissue is still in terrible condition.  So,  instead of cloning, scientists plan to use genetic-modification.  By using a tool called CRISPR, scientists could modify elephants with traits of mammoth, via using the fragmented mammoth DNA that has been discovered.  By doing this, you shall get a mammoth-like creature. And the big question is this:  Doesn't this mean that we're just making a hairy elephant? I often ask myself that question as well and my mind soon ...
Read more