buried snails - Page 2

Like any treat, though, they shouldn't over-indulge. Too many slugs gives my chickens the runs!

Oh! Flobear, too much information before my breakfast! Was very brave last night and went out with a torch and a pair of scissors. Did some snipping in half but what a mess it leaves. Yuk. Hope the rain washes the patio off today. Then there will be another lot out tonight. I've just got to be brave and not so squeamish!

The carcases seem to attract more slugs, so you get to slaughter a few more. I find that they have dired up and disappeared (been eaten?) within about three days.

I've found a few of the big slightly buried ones too. I really did go yuk when I pulled the first one up & saw all the white eggs below. Urgh. 

I got rid of them all carefully. They were in pots that had copper tape on, but is a few years old. I did find it worked fairly well until this year though. Unless as has already been said they can get across from foliage in another pot or drooping leaves. It's expensive but so are most non pellet options.

We have a small pond & slug numbers have gone down a bit even though we don't see frogs, we get frogspawn each year.

Hedgehogs are meant to be great for eating them, but we're too well fenced to keep the dog in.

There are lots of plants I just won't grow because of them. I'm determined to get delphiniums established. I'm growing them on in pots in the table from seed until they're big enough to cope hopefully though.

Lokelani I did the same and when they got to a foot high I thought they'd be ok.  oh no the creature have still decimated them. Might have to grow them in pots permanently. I will not give up!

I don't know much (anything) about using copper, but I understand it has to be cleaned every year. I read on one thread that you can use brown sauce!!

Watch out everyone. I went to fill a new planter with MPC from an opened bag today only to find something had been laying eggs in it. Nice white round balls just like the ones I found attached to the snail last week. Glad I spotted them as that would not have been a good start to the plants would it?

Oh dear diggingdoris, I wasn't planning on leaving them in pots that long, but maybe I will! I'm definitely not going to rush them having read that....

I'm determined not to give up on delphiniums this time round. 

One ray of hope, I saw two tiny baby frogs hopping away from me in the flower bed today, so fingers crossed......

Lokelani, you only need a small hole to let hedgehogs through. I've seen adults squeeze under a solid gate only about 3 inches off the ground. An inch or two more would be more comfortable. Unless you have miniature chihuahuas I think the dogs would be safe.

Has anyone come across the spanish slug that was in the paper the other day it looked huge. I know I dont mind cutting them in half but even Ill be squeamish cutting one of them!!

Not sure if it was one of those but I found a bright orange one easily 4 inches long when I was walking the dog. Not seen any in my garden. Occasionaly I see the big black 3inch ones, but not recently. Size doesn't seem to matter when it comes to slugs, as the small ones do just as much damage! What I find amusing is that rhubarb leaves are poisonous to us, but the slugs munch on them and it doesn't kill them!

A pair of fairly large tweezers and a big pot of salty water works for me (no yukky bits or innards lying about) and they all eventualy end up down the roadside drain

Must say they seem to breed faster than I catch them

Hedgehogs are good slug noshers but also like ground beetles young frogs and birds eggs but seem to avoid vine weevil like the plague

I've just been reading about someone who puts short lengths of guttering over lids filled with slug pellets who said it seemed to work, the guttering keeps the rain off and the hedgehog safe, whilst the slugs like the pellets and no mess was mentioned.  I thought I'd deffinitely give it a go - just got to find the guttering or any curved shape that I could use instead.

That's interesting FloBear, in that case I'm surprised we've never had one with the gap under & between the gate slats. The Fort Knox aspects of the garden are to keep a siberian husky in, so the gates aren't sized to keep tiny animals in or out. Mind you we stopped getting rabbits in when we enclosed it all safely for him. 

So maybe it's his presence & threat as a hunter, rather than the fencing that is keeping everything else furry out! 

The frogs will do me though, they should do a good job of munching slugs.

I let my chickens have the run of the garden over the winter and the early spring and have seen far fewer slugs and snails than ever before. Now that the plants are growing they have a scrat about only once or twice a week but it has certainly made a huge difference with the population of the plant munchers.

In the school garden though we have never had such a problem as we have this year. The warm wet weather seems to be ideal for them. So, we go on snail hunts and stand on them (only to make the buffet table easier access for the birds you see). The birds love them and they're safe to eat.