# Slugs and snails



## lifestyle

Has anyone else got this problem.Our garden is full of slugs and some snails.
This is the first time we have spent time at home at this time of year,so decided to plant loads of flowers,which looked really nice for a couple days.until the slugs attacked every plant we have :x :x 
Now the question i have .If i use slug repellent will this harm the birds.
It says on the bottle safe to use ,birds will not eat the pellets.What i concerned about is we have two thrushes who are regular visitors to our garden,and if they eat the dead slugs will they be poisoned.

Les


----------



## 747

I cleared ours out by buying 2 young ducklings. They ate the lot.

Then I found them a good home.

ps, they may eat some of your flowers as well.


----------



## lifestyle

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: 
I was going to ask my wife to sit in the garden.She scares everything else :lol: :lol: :lol: 

Les


----------



## motormouth

Nows there's a coincidence. The banner ad at the top is for slug and snail treatment. How did they know????????


----------



## Stanner

motormouth said:


> Nows there's a coincidence. The banner ad at the top is for slug and snail treatment. How did they know????????


PHORM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorm

Snoopy! Snoopy!


----------



## 747

motormouth said:


> Nows there's a coincidence. The banner ad at the top is for slug and snail treatment. How did they know????????


Start a thread about massage Parlours for motorhomers and see what pops up. :lol:


----------



## Stanner

747 said:


> motormouth said:
> 
> 
> 
> Nows there's a coincidence. The banner ad at the top is for slug and snail treatment. How did they know????????
> 
> 
> 
> Start a thread about massage Parlours for motorhomers and see what pops up. :lol:
Click to expand...

 8O


----------



## aultymer

If you put down slug pellets and cover them with a flower pot or slate then the birds shouldn't be able to eat the poisoned slugs. Just came in from doing just that! spooky!


----------



## motormouth

747 said:


> motormouth said:
> 
> 
> 
> Nows there's a coincidence. The banner ad at the top is for slug and snail treatment. How did they know????????
> 
> 
> 
> Start a thread about massage Parlours for motorhomers and see what pops up. :lol:
Click to expand...

One of my favourite chat up lines to a beautiful girl was, "come and sit on my knee and we'll talk about the first thing that pops up"


----------



## lifestyle

motormouth said:


> Nows there's a coincidence. The banner ad at the top is for slug and snail treatment. How did they know????????


How long has that been there  

Les


----------



## Telbell

If you drop a little salt onto the backs of the slugs they'll disintegrate so there's little chance the birds will go anywhere near them :twisted:


----------



## annetony

Telbell said:


> If you drop a little salt onto the backs of the slugs they'll disintegrate so there's little chance the birds will go anywhere near them :twisted:


I used to do that till one night I was out armed with torch and salt...and the blighter reared up and screamed...I felt sick and have never done it since..I just chuck them over the hedge.. :lol: :lol:

Anne


----------



## aldra

I think the very wet weather has encouraged them

we have both slugs and snails, snails because our house is ivy covered

The best thing for us has been the frogs, they eat the young snails and slugs

At any rate my hostas are now improving year on year

We do use pellets but only on the raised beds in the greenhouse other wise they demolish the crops

In the garden we just tolorate those that the frogs miss

Thrushes enjoy snails which is prob what encourages them to your garden lifestle

Like Anne I would not be happy killing them in cold blood I used to collect them at night and release them in the field at the cemetery   

But I believe the large brown ones are not native slugs and should be dealt with

A large box of leaves and slug pellets maybe

Aldra


----------



## Patty123

I planted a load of petunias and when we came back from a week in Wales there was only stalks left, greedy little blitters had eaten the lot. I have Pugs so am a bit concerned what to do to stop them, a friend said "porridge oats" safe for birds, dogs, cats etc. but for the snails and slugs they swell up and chokes them apparently, I have not tried it yet.

Patty


----------



## Spiritofherald

Hedgehogs are regularly poisoned by eating slugs that have eaten pellets, so I expect the same would be true of birds. And don't forget that birds are also eaten by other predators so the poison goes through the food chain, accumulating at every stage (the reason DDT was so devastating in the sixties). 

There are other ways of stopping slugs, eg copper rings - look at any gardening web site, but please don't use slug pellets as they cause horrible suffering to wild life.


----------



## lifestyle

Thank you all for some good advice.
It is mainly the plant pots and hanging baskets(yes hanging baskets )that are on our decking.Caught one climbing up the window pane this morning   
Next year there wont be a problem,because we will be away.

Les


----------



## lifestyle

Spiritofherald said:


> Hedgehogs are regularly poisoned by eating slugs that have eaten pellets, so I expect the same would be true of birds. And don't forget that birds are also eaten by other predators so the poison goes through the food chain, accumulating at every stage (the reason DDT was so devastating in the sixties).
> 
> There are other ways of stopping slugs, eg copper rings - look at any gardening web site, but please don't use slug pellets as they cause horrible suffering to wild life.


I`m not going to use pellets,we do have hedgehogs in the garden.

Les


----------



## aultymer

Can I refer the gentleman to the reply I gave earlier? 
Covered pellets are no danger to birds or hedghogs.


----------



## aldra

I agree which is why I would suggest a box or bucket to drop them in

The greenhouse is not really accessible to birds or animals

Plus I would not want Shadow eating slug pellets

But it is a problem when they completely strip plants

If you have room I would suggest a small wildlife pond, great for frogs, birds and wildlife in general

We have a large koi pond with a small wildlife pond at the top, unfiltered and watching the birds drinking and bathing is great

Although we really only have a large colony of sparrows (bad tempered little b****rs) two pairs of Blackbirds and a couple of ringed Doves and of course robins as pugnacious as the sparrows

But we are happy as sparrow populations are declining

not in my garden as I fight my way through young birds, and Shadow does a sterling job of scattering unconcerned groups of sparrows who settle back two minutes later

and eat their way through kilos of bird food

Aldra


----------



## simandme

Thanks for this thread - I thought we had the greediest snails on the island! 
They absolutely love the cherry tree we put in last year. We tried to remove them, but they managed to get back up. So this year we bought snail pellets :? (that promise not to hurt anything but snails) but it is obviously very weak because we have even found one of them sitting on the snail pellet container :lol: :lol: 
The most effective solution, has been to get up early and pick them off the leaves (yes, there are still a few left); then throw them over to the neighbour...they seem to enjoy the flying :roll:


----------



## Telbell

> Next year there wont be a problem,because we will be away.


Do the slugs only turn up when you are around at home then? :wink:


----------



## safariboy

I understand that the Metaldehyde ones can kill other animals but that the others based (I think) on Iron Phosphate are considered safe. They have kept the slugs of my Hosters this year.
If the problem is only slugs there is a nematode that you can buy that kills them. It does not work well with snails.
It is called "nemaslug" and Amazon sell it.
If you want to protect a pot copper wire wrapped round it is effective.


----------



## bmb1uk

what's wrong with the good old fashioned beer trap ,slugs and snails cannt resist it, wont harm anything else.


----------



## bazzeruk

My family laughed at me when I manufactured a "slugger" - it was a sharpened trowel, fixed to a pole. Most effective way is to go out at night, with a torch and cut the buggers in half!! 

They laughed, but it solved the problem the following year!!


----------



## lifestyle

Telbell said:


> Next year there wont be a problem,because we will be away.
> 
> 
> 
> Do the slugs only turn up when you are around at home then? :wink:
Click to expand...

 :lol: :lol: 
Tel, we will be away,so therefore will not put any plants out.
The rest of the garden has boarders with a membrane and plum slate.

I could always ask them if they would like to travel with us :roll: :roll:

Les :wink:


----------



## DJMotorhomer

Hi

A few years ago we had the same problem. We used NEMASLUG, it uses Nematodes which is a microscopic pathogen, you put in watering can add water pour over bedding plants. The slugs / snails crawl over these areas and it kills them, if memory serves me, it lasts about 12 weeks, here is a link

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&...hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&ref=pd_sl_7rs5rdtdg_b

hope that helps

DJ


----------



## Spiritofherald

aultymer said:


> Can I refer the gentleman to the reply I gave earlier?
> Covered pellets are no danger to birds or hedghogs.


But the slugs that eat them and later eaten by birds and hedgehogs are.


----------



## Spiritofherald

Chickens are a cheap and an excellent way to control slug and snail populations. We have three chickens and there are still some slugs and snails around but not as many as we used to have. The down side is that chickens will scratch up seedlings and eat tender plants. I'm not sure which is worse slug or chicken damage, but then slugs can't keep me supplied with eggs :lol: 

As someone has already said, natural wildlife is the best way to control them - frogs, hedgeghogs, birds, etc, but wildlife and slug pellets are mutually exclusive, you cannot have both with causing harm.


----------



## shirleydeputy

Hi
Here's another vote for Nemaslug. They are expensive and you are supposed to dose them again after so many weeks. I used them for the last couple of years and they worked a treat! 
I kept the cost down by only buying a dose at the beginning of the season when the hostas etc are coming through. When the plants are a bit older they seem to lose slug appeal and the frogs seem more active and do their bit to keep the slimy things down.
The slugs im my garden are having to look underwater for their plants at the moment! :? 
Shirley


----------



## aultymer

Spiritofherald said:


> aultymer said:
> 
> 
> 
> Can I refer the gentleman to the reply I gave earlier?
> Covered pellets are no danger to birds or hedghogs.
> 
> 
> 
> But the slugs that eat them and later eaten by birds and hedgehogs are.
Click to expand...

The slug die under the cover with the bait we use so no way for hedghogs or birds to get them.


----------



## Zebedee

Spiritofherald said:


> aultymer said:
> 
> 
> 
> Can I refer the gentleman to the reply I gave earlier?
> Covered pellets are no danger to birds or hedghogs.
> 
> 
> 
> But the slugs that eat them and later eaten by birds and hedgehogs are.
Click to expand...

Are they eaten though, or is this just an assumption that nobody has bothered to test??

My neighbour and I did do a test a couple of years ago when slugs were very bad. We used the metaldehyde pellets and simply observed the slime trails which led to the dead slugs. Not a single dead slug was eaten by birds, or the hedgehogs we have in the garden - and we repeated the test several times over a couple of weeks. There was still a dead slug at the end of every slime trail!

We came to the conclusion that birds and hedgehogs are not stupid, and can probably smell the metaldehyde. Whatever the reason, no poisoned slugs were eaten, and we left them there to rot, just to be certain.

Dave 

P.S. It also seems curious that if slugs are such a delicacy to birds and hedgehogs, why are they so abundant in a garden full of birds and with at least two hedgehogs??


----------



## aldra

I think it might depend on the size of the slugs

but I don,t know

Aldr\a


----------



## StewartJ

Slug pellets do unfortunately impact on wildlife and are partially to n
blame for the crash in Song Thrush numbers, just try googling using slug pellets and impacts on wildlife.

Some good advice here:-

http://ezinearticles.com/?Organic-Methods-To-Stop-Slugs-and-Snails&id=1096943


----------

