Skunk Mating

Video Transcript

"Let's talk about skunk mating. Now what we're talking about are domestically bred skunks. You can never ever handle or keep a wildlife or a wild skunk as a pet. Every state or most states pretty much consider them wildlife even domestically bred ones and so you have to have a permit to even deal with a skunk. And you can talk to your local wildlife agency and they can help you with that. As far as skunks are concerned and mating, generally males are polygamists. They will have multiple female partners. After being bred, a female may be a delayed fertilizer so they may not start forming their kits right after mating has taken place. After conception, gestation period is about sixty to seventy five days. That is how long it takes until the mother skunk actually has the kit or baby skunks. When a skunk goes in to labor generally they have about three to ten kits per litter, and generally that is something that's a natural course of action. They are placental like dogs are. And generally after having the kits, they're blind and deaf and they open their eyes after about three weeks of age and are weaned after a couple of months and then they reach sexual maturity at probably more like a year or something like that."