Slugs and Snails.

[John85]

About beertraps or other traps:
Jokes are fine but useful information would be even better.Any suggestions?

[Palustris]

Cannot help with the Beer traps, but one of our cats must have caught a mole sometime yesterday     ( Yah for the cat, more power to his claws), well this morning I noticed that the carcass was covered in slugs ,feasting away.
In enclosed spaces like our frames where birds and cats etc. cannot get I use the small blue Slug bait and it does seem to work.

[Peter Maguire]

To be serious for a moment, I have tried beer traps in the past and they have been remarkably unsuccessful, at least for slugs/snails. I do have a fancy glass contraption which is a wasp trap with a hole in the base to which you add beer and this seems to work for them if you are sitting outside on a warm summer evening.
I also use use small amounts of slug pellets in two situations. Firstly in the alpine house around the emerging buds of hepaticas early in the spring, and secondly I used to use them around cypripedium buds in the frame as they emerged. I've used expanded clay granules as suggested by David in the Cyp thread and this seems to work, although the sand bed on which the pots stand is watered with a liquid slug killer at the beginning of the year before the pots are placed there to dissuade early and unwelcome attention from molluscs.

[Anthony Darby]

Have slug nematodes gone out of fashion or are they a waste of money?

[John85]

They are effective against slugs but not against snails.
Leaving the dead slugs as bait is indeed a good idea but again it seems not to work with snails.
The blue pellets are controlling both but I am reluctant to use them.
I'd like your experiences with coppers wires with or without current applied to them

[Peter Maguire]

I've tried copper tape, sticky on one side, wrapped around the wodden uprights of a raised sand plunge alongside the greenhouse that I constructed. My impression is that it did work for a time, but then the adhesive became detached and the pesky molluscs crawled underneath.
Perhaps one could ensure it stayed attched to a wooden surface by using copper pins to supplement the adhesive, but I never tried that. Whether the adhesive failed after a time because it was designed to work on ceramic pots, not rough-sawn 3x3 timbers, I'm not sure. It's certainly very thin, and tears easily when trying to apply it to rough wood!
I've not tried the technique of using two parallel copper wires attached to different terminals of a low voltage battery - how high a voltage can one use? I could look forward to the sound of sizzling snails.

[John85]

Thank you Peter.
I'll try it with a hosta as bait.
Till 24v it 'll certainly be safe but you are not going to fry slugs with that voltage!
But after all,I don't ask for the dead penalty,banishment is good enought!
I don't want to deprive the hedgehogs of their dinner.

[Alan_b]

You apply a voltage by means of a battery with each terminal connected to one of your two copper wires.  You will then get a current if something that is electrically conducting connects one wire to the other.  Presumably when the slug or snail touches the second wire it feels this current as an electric shock and that deters it from proceeding.  Too much current flow is a bad thing because it discharges the battery so it is better if the slug or snail is persuaded to turn around and let go of the second wire than if it just sits between the two wires and fries.  There is also the problem that a film of moisture on the surface between the two wires will conduct electricity and discharge the battery.

Copper tape might work because the copper accumulates a static electric charge so the slug gets a static shock when it touches the tape.   Copper is also a good conductor of heat so the tape might feel unpleasantly cold to the slug or snail.

I have not used either myself; just thinking about the physics.     

[Peter Maguire]

I'll try it with a hosta as bait.

Hostas make excellent bait, as the lacy looking specimens I have dotted about the garden can testify. 

I'm tempted to try the two copper wires and a battery technique on the raised sand plunge myself, I just need to source fine copper wires that aren't covered in insulation. Presumably they could be attached to a wooden surface by another, less conductive metal, say using a staple gun, as long as the staple does not bridge the gap between the wires.

[fredg]

I used to look after my slugs. Friendly little things
They don't bother plants though

[TC]

My recent experience has shown that both slugs and snails eat the remains of each other.  Last night I only found 2 leopard slugs , some tiny slugs and no snails.