The only good slug is a dead slug ☠️

DiggerUK

I did a search to see what discussions there have been on killing slugs, and  came up with a blank. This surprised me and had me thinking that maybe I had found the home of The Society for the Protection of Slugs. If I have then what I am about to say will upset you, best look away now.

I use slug pellets, cheapest I can get my hands on. I have found that you get best value by putting them inside a tube weighted down with a stone so it doesn't get blown away  or washed away by the weather. Old drainage clay pipes are classy, but not that easy to find. I mainly  use old pop bottles by cutting off the top and bottom, weighting it down and putting a few pellets in.

What about the birds and hedgehogs I hear some say, no problem, they don't get killed by slug pellets. I'm not claiming that the poison in slug pellets isn't capable of killing hedgehogs and birds, the fact is that the evidence of this happening is non existent. I've searched high and low, even contacted bird and hedgehog protectors for evidence, to date no replies and no evidence.

I have had to use the biological killer on the veg plots because 90% of slugs spend 90% of their time underground and don't get anywhere near the pellets. After losing all my potatoes one year I'll pay the price for securing the crops. As many of you will  know, the heartbreak of having a crop fail after all the effort that goes in to producing veg is hard to handle.

I refuse to waste good beer on these thugs, and  all the other fanciful  suggestions that I have come across turned out to be useless legends and folklore, unless you know better of course..._

Davesnave

The old metaldehyde pellets that were reputed to kill other creatures were banned for sale from last June, so unless one has a stockpile, like a 'friend' of mine does, those are out of the equation for home gardeners. The safe ferric phosphate  pellets do seem to disappear much quicker than the old naughty variety; literally overnight in my polytunnel, which makes me think they are too wildlife friendly and some rodent is eating them. Those mice won't have anaemia.

It was always the case that farmers used far more of the metaldehyde pellets that the public at large, and they too are now restricted to ferric phosphate, except in glasshouses. If there is an improvement in conditions for wildlife, it will come largely from curbing that part of  their use. It will probably mean slightly higher prices for vegetables, but it remains to be seen what problems arise, as governments may ban chemicals, find unwanted consequences and then reverse legislation. This happened when a chemical control for bracken called Asulox was banned, only to be unbanned, re-banned and unbanned again, because farmers had no other effective means of control. I'm not sure what the current position is with Asulox, but I don't care, as my 'friend' has enough of the stuff to see him out, only using it one year in 3 or 4, depending on conditions.

in_my_wellies

Dave, I read this:
https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/news/metaldehyde-slug-pellets-ban-overturned
Has the ban been reversed again? My google search only has articles dated until August 2019
For the record I'm still only half way through a tub I bought at least 15 years ago. 

Davesnave

Looks like people have at least a year to buy more if they want them. Like you, I don't have a big slug problem outside the polytunnel.

https://agritradenews.co.uk/news/2019/08/02/chiltern-case-overturns-uk-metaldehyde-ban/

in_my_wellies

I would have a slug and snail problem if I used slug pellets! Instead I encourage a healthy population of thrushes, newts, badgers and toads which eat them - all creatures helped along by a semi-untidy garden.
By that I mean
leaves and twigs left in the hedge bottoms
large wide hedging for nesting birds
apples left out, cut in half, near stone walls where slugs hide encourages birds to feed on both 
several overgrown ponds which the newts and toad breed in (no fish to eat the eggs)
long grass near the ponds in a shady place for the newts in summer
old tiles, broken crocks and a few pieces of corrugated metal around the garden and in the greenhouse for the toads to hide under
leaf/twig piles for hedgehogs
gaps in the fence the size of a cat flap for the hedgehogs to travel through
visiting badgers and foxes help too
free ranging hens do a great job too
 

DiggerUK

Davesnave.......Like you, I don't have a big slug problem outside the polytunnel.

.......I hate you already, and the other one..._

DiggerUK

in_my_wellies I would have a slug and snail problem if I used slug pellets..........

Most of what you say sounds plausible, but that's all.
We have hedgehogs coming out of our earholes, so many in fact that we kept catching them in the squirrel traps. They don't eat enough, that's the problem........For anybody who uses squirrel traps be warned, even if you catch hedgehogs by accident and let them go, you aren't complying with the law because if you know they can get caught you can't allow them to be caught, even by accident. We got round the problem by raising the traps off the ground and had no more captured hedgehogs.

We also have swarms of birds that scratch around, blackbirds, collared doves, thrushes, pigeons etc., again the problem is that they don't eat enough of them.

Badgers digging up the garden I can do without, no matter how many slugs and snails they might consume. Chickens are on the wish list, we know were we are going to put them......for now they are just in our imagination on the wish list.

As we have a small brook running past the garden there are plenty of frogs. We also have good numbers of lizards and slow worms, again they all seem to be on vegetarian diets and useless to Digger Mansions.

We don't keep the gardens entirely litter free either because it keeps the birds coming back for a good scratch, and we encourage birds to visit by keeping well stocked feeding stations. As to leaving crocks, corrugated sheets and old tiles about, those we do clear away quickly because it is a haven for slugs and snails. We even stopped using walking boards on the vegetable patches because they congealed underneath..._

Davesnave

DiggerUK said:

Davesnave.......Like you, I don't have a big slug problem outside the polytunnel.

.......I hate you already, and the other one..._

It's mainly to do with the soil. We're on fine, sandy, quick draining stuff, so slugs don't fare well in dry weather. With snails, I create some nice places for them to hide in autumn, then collect them in a bucket and transport them to another farmer's field 200m away across a B class road. Did that last week.

We occasionally have thrushes that eat snails, but I've never seen a bird take a slug. That includes chickens, which I've had good numbers of. They'll eat a mouse, but slugs? No way!

When we came to the country, I expected to be fending off wild things all the time, but the badgers, foxes and pigeons cause no problems worth mentioning and the cats cleared out the few rabbits we had. I do get slugs in the big polytunnel, because they can get behind the boards in the deep beds and similar places. That's where I use a few pellets.

DiggerUK

Sandy soil ?!*?! now I hate you even more. We had loamy soil at our last home, and we had the slugs and snails easily controlled. But here we are an a lot of clay, and it's a whole new war game. 

We are definitely not into rehoming snails, they go on a one way ticket to paradise and their mortal remains are offered to the sky spirits on the bird table. We recycle them, not rehome them..._

-taff

Hedgehogs don't eat slugs if there's other more palatable stuff around....

You could just use nematodes and let the rest of the insects live....

DiggerUK

Yes, I do use nematodes, they are expensive, but effective. As this is MSE, anybody know were the cheapest supplier can be found.

The pellets don't kill insects as far as I am aware, and to be honest I could live with that if they did..._