Skunk Diet

Because so little research has been done about skunks dietary needs in captivity, there are vast differences in what people are told to feed their skunks. Our advice to anybody who is getting a skunk as a pet is that you do as much research as you can and make your own choice based on as much information as possible.

There are a few things that everybody agrees on where diet is concerned though:

Cat food is not an adequate diet for skunks and can be detrimental to their health.
Dog food alone is not an adequate diet for skunks.
Skunks need more calcium than provided in any of the accepted diet plans( according to people who have done laboratory tests).
Skunks need about 500 mg a day of Taurine ( according to people who have done laboratory tests), which is more than provided in any of the accepted diets.
Skunks are omnivores (eat both meat and vegetables).
Skunks need to eat crunchy food of some kind (either in kibble form or raw vegetables) to maintain healthy teeth.
Skunks are "obsessive" eaters. YOU must monitor their food intake. In a very short time, a skunk will eat him/herself into obesity.

Since there are commercially available omnivore diets now, several people took it upon themselves to investigate the most widely known of them, since skunks are omnivores. The hope was that this would take much of the guess work out of skunk diet plans as well as give them a more complete nutritional structure. They took all of the ingredients and nutritional information of the leading, commercially available omnivore diets, listed them side by side and sent them to vets, skunk scientists and zoo nutritionists to come up with yet a third alternative. All agreed that the Mazuri brand was the most complete omnivore diet. As with the two diets above, they still suggest adding Taurine and Calcium in their diets. Mazuri also has no chemical additives which was another complaint by skunk people as to why they do not feed commercial food.

This diet consists of Mazuri Omnivore-Zoo Feed "A", usually between 5 and 12 kibbles a day (about 1 kibble per pound of a skunk's ideal weight) depending on skunk's size, activity level and individual metabolism (please follow package directions), vegetables (either fresh or frozen) and supplements of 500 mg of Taurine per day and Calcium.

With this diet, the Mazuri is crunchy, so that will help the skunk's teeth. Feeding raw vegetables also helps the teeth, but as long as they are getting a crunchy main diet, you can still feed frozen vegetables.

Chewable Taurine in 250 mg tablets is available online for cats. You can find these at http://www.revivalanimal.com/Detail.cfm?ItemName=Taurine+Tablets Skunks seem to love them and giving it this way is really easy. They are easy to chew tablets and we haven't found a species yet that doesn't like them.

Another source of easily given Taurine is at http://www.harlmen.com/DynaTaurine.asp

Children's chewable calcium works great, and they love them. Repcal also works for the calcium. To find a dealer for Mazuri in your area, visit www.mazuri.com.

Because there were no true skunk or omnivore diets available commercially that you could just pick up at the pet store, people who have owned skunks for a long time have had to come up with their own diet plans. There are only a few widely accepted skunk diets, two are put out by skunk clubs. To learn about these, please follow the links below. We do not recommend any diet as being better or worse than any other. We are simply listing these in order to help you make an informed decision.