Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => General Forum => Topic started by: TC on June 16, 2013, 06:43:09 PM
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For years the perennial problem of controlling slugs and snails has defeated me. By accident, I MAY have come up with an effective cure for the problem.
About 14 days ago, I started to go out at dark....about 2300 and look for these pests. I have been able to intercept them crossing my garden paths on their way to commit mayhem. Armed with a torch and broom handle I have squished them and left them on site. I found that on the next evening the slugs and snails were feasting on the ones I had killed the night before. This has been the case for the past 14 nights !
Very few have been found anywhere but on their squashed relatives. At first it was the large leopard slugs... huge bruisers about 4" long, then smaller varieties and then snails. So far I have despatched about 200 slugs/snails and have not found any on my seedlings...tempting fate ?
I still need to look under my pots to check for slugs resting there and still check on my raised beds for any who have managed to avoid the joys of cannibalism.
It's rather tedious to go out just before bed time, but it only takes about 10 minutes max. and the results seem to be worth it. I never did like scattering slug pellets around the garden.
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Here is one of my solutions.
I have 5 ducks in an acre of garden - I can't remember what a slug looks like.
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You win the prize for the cutest pest controller there, Gail!!
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You can soak a clay pot well and then leave it in a favored spot at evening. Next morning you will find a few snails in, squash them and leave the remains there. Leave the pot (always on its side) in the same spot or another. Next morning squash the new ones and so on. They eat the remains of those you squashed and then use the pot as a refuge. It is a long known and effective method.
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The often mentioned tip of having chicken and ducks eat slugs and snails is not safe as they carry internal parasites that can infect the birds. This has also been known for long.
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Also worth mentioning that many British slugs are actually omnivorous and generally eat each other. The leopard slug is a definite carnivore as is the big black( sometimes brown ) slug.
Snails do far more damage to plants in fact than slugs.
And if you want to see something really gross, then look at dog droppings, they are often smothered in feasting molluscs.
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I saw the title of this thread and was expecting puppy dogs tails to be the next line. ::)
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Yes, slugs and snails are intermediate hosts of parasites that infect poultry but if they are free-range I'm not sure how one can stop the birds eating them! Same with earthworms. So, many poultry keepers worm their birds to keep on top of the problem. Good hygiene also helps, and moving the birds to fresh ground if space allows. Some people also swear by cider vinegar and/or garlic in the birds' drinking water.
As an aside, using poultry to control pests does sound attractive, doesn't it? But I'm not convinced - well, not for the vegetable gardener anyway. You let loose some ducks and chickens on a veg patch in active growth (ie when it's most attractive to slugs and snails) and by the end of the day the pests may have gone but so will your crops! I can see the benefit, though, of using the birds to clean the ground and pick over crop residues etc during the non-growing, winter period.
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............Some people also swear by cider vinegar............ in the birds' drinking water.
Will they lay pickled eggs then? ???
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David, folks don't seem to be as fond of pickled eggs as they used to be, there always used to be a big jar on the counter at the local chippie...
I think the cider vinegar is meant to lower the pH in the digestive tract to discourage pathogens. To be honest, I'm not sure if it would work as a wormer but people do rate it as a general tonic and pick-me-up therefore making the birds 'healthier' and more able to fight off infections, parasites etc. I don't know how true this is but it's cheaper than vet bills!
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Last night, only 3 killed. Am I winning ?
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What about beertraps?
How effective are they?
They don't seem very attractive to snails.
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Waste of good beer if you ask me ;D
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I think that the beer works best with the following approach:
1. drink beer
2. about an hour later go out in the dark with a torch and suitable method of despatch for the slugs/snails, comforted by the warm fug induced by stage 1 (above).
3. have another beer, content in the knowledge of a job well done. ;D ;D ;D
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The often mentioned tip of having chicken and ducks eat slugs and snails is not safe as they carry internal parasites that can infect the birds. This has also been known for long.
Regular worming is a necessary part of keeping poultry but I've never found that a problem as I use a worming powder that you just sprinkle on their food (unlike worming my cat which used to involve the loss of large chunks of my fingers!).
I agree with Steve that ducks/chickens on a vegetable patch is not a good idea, although chickens are very good at clearing the ground before sowing your veg. The ducks have never been much of a problem although one of the muscovies does like dianthus and several of them enjoy pulling the leaves off an osmanthus bush for some reason....
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About beertraps or other traps:
Jokes are fine but useful information would be even better.Any suggestions?
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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.
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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.
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Have slug nematodes gone out of fashion or are they a waste of money?
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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
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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. :D
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I used to look after my slugs. Friendly little things :D
They don't bother plants though
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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.