No one likes a skunk. They are smelly, they are are aggressive, and the are destructive. Here is a quick Q & A about skunks, so that you can be informed about potential hazards these pests pose.
Be sure to contact The Bug Dude for all your needs regarding skunks.
Q-1. WHERE DO SKUNKS LIVE?
A. Skunks, or mephitidae, are found in both North and South America, excluding only the farthest northern reaches of Canada. Four skunk species can be found in North America, though the striped skunk is the most common. Spotted skunks mostly live in northern Mexico. Hooded skunks stay in the southwestern United States.
In the wild, skunks prefer to live in open lands next to forest areas and in clearings and pastures. On a prairie, skunks will make their homes in timber alongside a river or in thickets. Hollow logs can also become skunk homes.
Skunk dens are lined with hay, grass or leaves. Skunks will usually have more than one den, and they will go from one to the other to loaf throughout the day.
But often, skunks move into human territory. Skunks will burrow under sheds, homes, businesses, porches, decks, crawlspaces and woodpiles and create a home. They will enter foundation openings to get to these spots or create a skunk hole themselves. They have large feet with well-developed claws which make them very good diggers. In urban areas, skunks can also be found in industrial parks with large open areas.
Skunks are very sensitive to light, which is why they prefer the cool darkness of their dens during the day.
Q-2. WHEN ARE SKUNKS MOST ACTIVE?
A. Skunks are nocturnal, so you will rarely see them during the day near your home or business.
They start the mating process in February. About 10 weeks later, 2 to 8 babies, and sometimes up to 16 babies, will be born. Female skunks only have one litter per year. Skunk pups are wrinkly, blind and almost hairless. Skunk babies will be independent by the following spring.
Though most wild skunks only live for about three years, some have been known to live up to 10.
Compared to some other small mammals, male skunks will travel pretty far. Though most will stay in the bounds of ½ to 2 miles from home, a male skunk may travel up to 5 miles during mating season. Female skunks are not great travelers.
During mating season, male skunks are often hit by cars. Their behavior during this time causes them to be active during the day, move very slowly and not leave an area, even if they are in danger.
In the coldest parts of winter skunks will lay dormant for about a month. At this time of year, they might create a hotel and den together for warmth, but otherwise they aren’t normally very social animals.
Q-3. WHAT FOODS DO SKUNKS EAT?
A. Skunks eat both plant and animal foods. Spring and summer are the times of year when they eat the most animal matter, since that is when insects are more available. Crickets, grasshoppers and beetles are their favorite insects. In the winter, mice serve as a huge portion of the skunk diet. When it is very hungry, a skunk may eat rats, rabbits and other small mammals.
Skunks also like to feed on garbage if they are living near humans. Dumpsters provide an easy and plentiful source of skunk food.
Q-4. WHY SHOULD I GET RID OF SKUNKS UNDER MY HOUSE OR BUSINESS?
A. If the lower ears of your corn stalks have been eaten away, a skunk is the likely culprit. If you hear a noise under your porch or building, a skunk may be setting up its home. If your lawn, garden or golf course is covered with cone-shaped holes and patches of dirt, a skunk may be searching for insect grubs.
All in all, skunks under your house or building can do a lot of expensive damage to your landscape, not to mention the odor they can produce in and around your home, or on you, your children, or house pets. Skunk spray will contaminate carpets, drapes, furniture and clothing.
A skunk is so brightly colored as if to say, “Watch out!” This is because skunks have the ability to discharge a nauseating musk from their anal glands and are capable of emitting several of these discharges one after the other. Skunks can spray their pungent smell from up to 15 feet away, or if it’s a windy day, even farther. If you are the lucky one who gets sprayed by a skunk, you will be blinded for about 15 minutes and your eyes will sting. Nosey house pets are not immune to the skunk’s spray. Obviously, the smell is there to ward off predators that get a whiff and don’t want any more. Skunk spray has evolved to smell similar to what other animals recognize as decay, which they’ll naturally shy away from. Skunk juices actually glows at night.
Before a skunk releases its scent, it will usually stamp its front feet and growl or hiss. Once a skunk lifts its tail, it usually means its victim will be covered with oily, thick skunk juice.
When skunks dig in your yard for food, a practice called “grubbing,” skunks can tear up your lawn to the point where it is beyond repair. Skunks will do grass damage to yards, golf courses, parks and other landscaping
If a skunk should choose to die under your home or business, the skunk odor will emanate into the living quarters, causing headaches and nausea. Skunk odor will contaminate carpets, fabrics, couches and clothing. Skunk smell will saturate fabrics and furniture, and can destroy insulation and any other item it comes into contact with if left alone long enough. Skunk odor can stick around for up to three years after it is sprayed.
While digging under your home or business, skunks will often fall into an area under the foundation and not be able to get themselves out because they are not good climbers. Trapped, the skunks end up dying, leaving a rotting skunk smell in their wake.
Skunks will tear into areas of your home or business and haunt it for years to come. Sometimes, so many shack up that the space becomes a skunk hotel. All this skunk damage will affect the value of your property. It is difficult to sell a home that has a skunk infestation and actually, it’s required by law that you fix a skunk problem before you sell your home. Property value can decrease between five percent and ten percent due to a skunk infestation.
Q-5. I HEARD SKUNKS CARRY DISEASES. IS THAT TRUE?
A. Yes, skunks are one of the primary carriers of rabies. Rabies, a virus, progressively paralyzes and can kill any mammal, including humans. Rabies is generally contracted through contact with an infected skunk through biting. Though humans should avoid contact with any skunks, if a skunk seems especially fearless around humans or is very active during the day, it could be infected.
Another illness spread by skunks is canine distemper. Distemper is a disease in dogs that is contagious, incurable and can be fatal. Domesticated dogs catch the virus when they come into contact with the bodily secretions of a sick skunk.
Skunks are also heavily infested with pests, which can spread into your home or business searching for hosts. Ticks, fleas and mites are all known carriers of disease.
Several cases of mites biting humans indoors have been reported.
Ticks are very mobile and have been known to crawl into buildings that skunks are living under, and may travel great distances to attach themselves to people.
If a skunk brings fleas into your home, most likely the biting bug will hop onto your house pet’s back. Once inside, large flea populations can build up quickly. Fleas live on the outside of their hosts’ bodies and need to feed on blood in order to produce eggs.
A skunk bug living near your home can become an infestation in your pantry or carpet in no time. One or two mites may stray from the skunk den and crawl along your kitchen table. But if the skunk abandons its den for any reason, the whole caboodle of skunk bugs will enter your home, looking for a new host. This is why it’s especially important to have our skunk control experts remove skunk garbage after all the skunks have been trapped.
Skunks are a liability for businesses and restaurants. Skunk diseases or skunk bugs may infect your employees, guests or food. There are documented cases of illnesses occurring in these situations, and the plaintiff successfully sues the owner of the business. Also, if you are an employer and your workers’ environment is being contaminated by skunks, you will see a drop in productivity due to illness.
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Professional Pest Control
Hiring a professional pest control service provider or exterminator offers several advantages over attempting to control and exterminate pests such as rodents, cockroaches, spiders, termites and ants in and around your property on your own. Professionally trained pest control service providers can resolve and prevent infestation, and also intervene on an emergency basis.
Function
Professional pest control service providers perform extermination procedures using highly potent chemicals to eradicate certain types of pests. They can set up termite and pest-baiting systems, and also protect the home or property from infestation by administering treatments on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. Unlike do-it-yourself pest control kits, professional pest control services can treat and prevent infestations over the long term.
Types of Pest Control Services
When working with a professional pest control service provider, you may be able to choose from the following types of services: pre-treatments for new construction, perimeter treatment to exterminate pests before they enter the home, emergency services to remove hives and kill pests that may be populating a certain area of the home, termite monitoring systems, infestation inspections, sanitization services, and sealing and caulking of certain structures to eliminate avenues of entry.
The Pest Control Process
When working with a pest control service provider, the first step is to undergo a thorough inspection. The provider will be able to document each area of the property that has been or is at risk of being infested, and will also take a close look at the types of pests affecting the area. The professional may also ask you what types of pests you have seen or encountered. After the inspection report is complete, the service provider can provide you with a proposal of services that may include pre-treatments, extermination treatments, sanitization and follow-up treatments.
Key Benefits of Pest Control
The key benefits of working with a pest control professional instead of attempting to eliminate pests on your own include thorough evaluation and inspection of your home that may detect areas that you did not know about, use of chemicals and compounds that do not damage the interior and exterior of the home, and the ability to close off all avenues of entry with general repair services.
Considerations
Pricing for professional pest control services can vary from region to region. Your quote will depend on the size of the home, the size of the lawn, whether you need interior and exterior treatments, the number of treatments you need over the recommended treatment plan, and the number of hours it will take to perform your required services. You can request for a site inspection with a breakdown of all services and rates so you know exactly what to expect from the service provider.
Be sure to contact The Bug Dude for all your pest control needs.
Phone: Toll Free: 800-310-BUGS (2847)
Phone: Local: 817-354-5350
Fax:817-540-0569
Pest Control Source Article
Dealing With Winter Pests
Don’t Let Pests Take Refuge In Your Home
Winter weather is a time where pests want to hide in the warmth of your home. Most folks think of rats and mice, but many other pests like ants are also prone to hiding indoors in the wintertime.
Rats, mice, and squirrels love to nest in attics during the winter. They burrow through the insulation and huddle around furnaces. They can be especially annoying by scratching in the ceiling and walls, keeping you up all night. They can also turn your attic into a disaster zone by contaminating the insulation with feces and urine.
It is a nasty thought to think of all the airborne contaminates floating around the attic and into the HVAC system of your home. These rodents need to keep their teeth sharp and constantly gnaw on anything to sharpen their teeth. They chew on wires and in some cases have led to house fires.
Raccoons, opossums, and bats can also contaminate and destroy attics. These pests can be eliminated with proper exclusion work. Winter is a great time to ensure all entry points into the home are sealed off. Many do not realize there is a gap between the shingle line and the gutter line, the usual entry point into the home for unwanted pests. A good exterminator can seal off these areas so animals can no longer get in these gaps.
Roaches and silverfish enjoy huddling in the warmth of attic insulation, and many homes see an influx of these two pests during the winter. Cockroaches also spread disease, and their droppings and saliva can trigger asthma attacks, especially in young children.
Call The Bug Dude today, and take care of these pests before they do serious damage to your health and home!
Phone: Toll Free: 800-310-BUGS (2847)
Phone: Local: 817-354-5350
Fax:817-540-0569
Pests Source Article
Nothing spoils a picnic more than seeing a trail of black ants travel over the food, down the table leg and off into the distance.
Where You’ll Find Black Ants
Black ants eat everything, vegetables, fruit and other insects, dead or alive. They especially love anything made with sugar or grease. The worker ant forages for the food, returns to the nest and alerts the others. The worker marks the trail by leaving a scent, produced by pheromones, along the way. Upon reaching the colony, the ant uses its antennae to brush against the other worker ants. This causes them to seek out the trail, get the food and bring it back to the nest. Though small in size the little black ant can transport items 20 times their weight.
Little black ants should not be confused with carpenter ants. Little black ants are located all over the world. They can be found in the backyards of most American homes. The nests can be located anywhere, in trees, under rotten wood and stones. Indoors, they’ll make a home under old carpeting, cracks and openings found in woodwork and the foundation. The majority of black ants found in the house are looking for food to take back to the nest.
Black Ants Appearance
Like their name, little black ants are small and jet- black in color. The scientific name is Monomorium minimum. Worker ants measure 1/16th of an inch. The queen is twice as the size at 1/8th of an inch. The colony consists of male ants, larvae, infertile female workers, all ruled by the queen. In some nests there will be two or more queens. There can be thousands of ants in the colony. When the colony is no longer able to support it, one of the queens and her workers will leave and start their own colony.
Black ants have a small stinger located at the rear of the abdomen but it’s not very effective, its effect is quite mild. The purpose of the antennae is to smell as well to touch. This is the ant’s way of communicating. The adult ants have six powerful legs along with a strong jaw. Although they have a jaw, they cannot chew food. The throat is long and thin, allowing for the swallowing of liquid from food, but not the solid bits.
Preventing Black Ant Infestation
Good housekeeping is best way to prevent an infestation of ants in the house. All food should be kept in closed containers. A solution of half water and half vinegar can be poured into a spray bottle and used on the kitchen surfaces. Ant bait can also be used. Caulk all openings into the home.
Treating Black Ants
The mistake most people make when attempting to control ants is only spraying the ones they see. This approach usually fails because the ants seen foraging over exposed surfaces is only a small portion of the colony. Typically, there will be thousands of additional ants including one or more egg-laying queens hidden somewhere in a nest. Eliminating queens and other colony members within nests is often the key to effective ant control.
If you think you have a problem with black ants, contact us here. We will make sure that your problem is solved properly so you can enjoy your home, and yard again. Black Ants Treatment Services
Black Ants Source Article 1
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When controlling ants, keep these important pest control tips in mind:
Our Pest Control Company Stops Ant’s Food Source
Knowing what the ant needs is vital to pest control and making your home or yard less inviting. Ants have various food sources including wood, decaying plants and insects or even your yummy food. Practice house hygiene. Empty and wash garbage cans and recycling bins. Clean up crumbs and spills, especially sweet liquids like soda. To do these things as they come up is good pest control.
Another way to control pest that come inside your home is by keeping your food in hard sealed containers, not cardboard boxes or paper wrappers. Ants are expert infiltrators and will swarm your delicious foods if you’re not prepared. Your yard is another prime spot for ants to flourish so keep the vegetation and growth around the house trimmed. This will hinder the ants ability to travel from the shrubs and branches into your house. Something as simple as yard maintenance will make you a pest control master!
Let’s make sure those pest don’t have a way to get in your house. Seal any cracks and crevices that ants may use to enter your house. Also ask how to use The Bug Dude to prevent and control ants in and around your home. If you decide to use pesticides, always read and follow all labeled instructions carefully.
There are many pest control companies in DFW to choose from, thank you for choosing
The Bug Dude!
Mid-Cities Pest Control was established in 1979 by Roy Leal with the dream of not only providing a pest control service, but of providing exceptional services at a reasonable price. Over the years his dream has become reality. Randy Leal, Roy’s son, and his wife Debbie have since taken over the family business. They have taken his father’s dream and grown upon it; still keeping in mind his father’s wishes to exceed the client’s expectations. Mid-Cities Pest Control has grown from the few customers it started with in 1979 to over 25,000 happy clients.
One of the ideas that Mid-Cities Pest Control practices today is that customers are priority #1. That is why clients’ rates are not increased as long as they stay on schedule with the company. We have found that there are no other companies out there that do this. We have customers that are paying the same price as their original price from years and years ago. Is that customer service or what?
Mid-Cities Pest Control provides free inspections; this allows you, the homeowner, to have a trained pest professional to come to your residence, not only to identify the pest but also to discuss the different options and plans that we have to take care of your pest needs. The inspector/technician will be able to discuss the process of making sure that your home is well protected, whether it is from ants, roaches, mice, rats or even termites. No matter what the multi-legged pest is, give us a call we would love the opportunity to earn your business. With weekday and even Saturday appointments we make it convenient for you to get the proper protection.
