08/13/2026
🐔 Farming, Pasture-Raised Chickens… and Skunks 🦨
One thing farming teaches you very quickly is that Mother Nature doesn’t always follow the farm plan.
For the past six years, we have raised chickens here at Whitetail Ridge Farm, and this is the first year we have experienced a serious problem with skunks.
Unfortunately, because of the skunk population and the losses and challenges they have caused, we will not have our fresh, pasture-raised chickens available for sale this year. 😔🐔
It is incredibly disappointing, but it is also part of the trials and tribulations of farming.
🌱 Why do we pasture-raise our chickens?
Pasture-raised chickens are able to spend their days outside doing what chickens naturally want to do — scratching, pecking, dust bathing, eating grasses, seeds, insects and other things they find while foraging.
There are some wonderful benefits to raising chickens this way:
• They get exercise, sunshine and fresh air.
• They can express their natural behaviours.
• They help control insects around the farm.
• Their manure naturally contributes nutrients back to the soil.
• Rotating chickens through pasture can be part of a healthy, regenerative farm system.
But there is a downside.
When chickens live outside on pasture, they are also sharing that environment with wildlife.
Coyotes, foxes, hawks, owls, raccoons, weasels — and, this year for us, skunks.
🦨 So… are skunks bad?
Not exactly.
Skunks actually have an important place in our ecosystem.
They are opportunistic omnivores and eat many things farmers and gardeners may not particularly want around, including insects, grubs, beetles, mice and other small rodents. They will also eat carrion, helping clean up dead animals.
In the right place, a skunk can actually be a pretty useful little farm neighbour.
The problem is when they discover an easy food source.
Skunks can eat eggs and young poultry, and they may prey on chickens when the opportunity presents itself. Once a predator discovers that a poultry area provides a reliable meal, keeping free-ranging or pasture-raised birds safe becomes much more difficult.
And that is the balancing act of farming.
We believe wildlife belongs here too. Our farm is part of a much larger ecosystem, and predators and scavengers all have a role to play.
But we also have a responsibility to protect the animals in our care.
Sometimes those two things collide.
🐓 That is the reality behind “pasture raised.”
It sounds idyllic — chickens wandering through green grass, scratching for bugs under the sunshine.
And most days, it is.
But pasture-raised farming also means predators, weather, heat, smoke, disease, fencing failures, feed costs, equipment breakdowns and sometimes walking outside in the morning to discover that nature changed your plans overnight.
There are years when everything seems to go beautifully.
And then there are years like this one.
After six years of raising chickens, 2026 will unfortunately be the year we won’t have our fresh pasture-raised chickens to offer our customers because of the skunk pressure we have experienced.
We are disappointed. We know some of our customers will be disappointed too.
But farming isn’t about pretending every year is perfect. It is about learning, adapting and figuring out how to do things better the following year.
So this year we will regroup, improve our predator protection and learn from what happened.
And hopefully next year the chickens will once again be happily scratching through the grass — while the skunks stick to eating the grubs and mice they’re actually very good at catching. 😉🦨🐔
Just another chapter in the trials, tribulations and adventures of farming at Whitetail Ridge Farm. 🌾🐝🐑🐄🐔
