Hobkin’s grown a lot in the two weeks we’ve had him. He’s still a little baby but, as you can see, he’s grown a bit. He’s now as big as (maybe even bigger than) Matthew’s foot.

Mephitis mephitis are crepuscular, that is, they are most active at dawn and dusk. Hobkin’s still a baby with a baby’s sleep cycle, but we have noticed that he tends to be pretty awake at around 5am and 9pm, and very asleep at noon. But he’s also pretty alert at other times of the day, so we’re not sure what his wake/sleep cycle will eventually be, or if we’ll be able to affect it. Matthew and I have been sleeping in shifts so that Hobkin is only unsupervised and locked away in his area for about four hours a day. In this picture you can see the “chip” marks clearly on his stomach.

Skunks are dexterous animals. They enjoy holding their food with their front paws. It gets a bit messy since we feed Hobkin cottage cheese and a beans & rice mixture mixed with yogurt and Hobkin also enjoys standing in his food while he’s eating it. One of the best ideas we had was to buy a “feeding tray” which is a large plastic Rubbermaid container which we feed him in. It makes clean up a lot easier. But no matter how messy it is, it’s undeniably cute. He flops backwards with his hind legs sprawled out to either side of him.

Hobkin has bonded to both Matthew and I and follows one or the other of us around the house constantly. He also spends a lot of time curled up, asleep, with one or the other of us.

When we got him, he wasn’t at all bitey. And, while I wouldn’t call him “bitey” now, he does tend to put his teeth into us when he plays. It doesn’t hurt and it doesn’t come close to drawing blood, but when he’s full grown, his teeth and jaws will be capable of biting to the bone (some people say through finger bones), so we’re instituting a no tolerance biting regime with the help of Mr. Water Bottle. So far, our success rate isn’t fantastic, but also, he’s still teething. None of the adult skunks we met had any sort of nipping or biting problem, so I suspect that skunks are like ferrets and Hobkin will outgrow the behavior when he gets older.