Stink bomb

I smell like skunk right now. After watering the garden and giving the chickens some fresh water, I was enjoying the weather and petting one of our small chicks. This is the only chick of 30 incubated eggs, that's still alive. We lost 2 of the other chicks over the weekend, when they were left out of the coop.

I might know what happened to those two now. One possibility is our big scat cat, but since he never bothers my chickens or chicks, I think it was the skunk that came over to visit this afternoon. First I saw him by the bush hog. A little while later, the chickens started to make a ruckus, and when I looked in the pen, there it was. It was drinking some water, and when he looked like he wanted to go through the little hole, into the coop, I was going to block his entrance.

The only problem was, that as soon as I opened the door (on the other side of the coop), he saw the light and walked into the coop. Worried about him eating eggs, or even killing some chicks, I summoned the man with the gun. Joe. I love that man. He will come out and shoot anything for me. He used a 12 gauge shotgun at point-blank range, and took care of my egg predator (sure enough he was eating eggs)

Unfortunately he didn't die until he had blasted a stink bomb. Now, we have a dead skunk in our coop, and you can barely even go in there. I think I need a gas mask, and full-on space suit to get it out. But I do want to get it out soon, so hopefully the stink won't stick too long.