I've had enough of getting up every morning to find big holes in all my
plants... I've tried rounding the snails up at midnight by torchlight,
dumping them a few hundred yards away but I've just noticed a couple of my
plants have literally dozens of tiny baby snails stuck all over them, and
I've had enough. It's them or me!!

I've put my humane compassion aside & put down some of the metaldehyde
pellets in the obvious places, taking care to cover them or put them in
inaccessible (for pets) places like down the side of the shed and
underneath, and in all the potted plants that are off the ground.

Question is, does anyone have any experience with dogs or cats sniffing them
out and eating them? I don't think my dog (and the neighbourhood cats) can
get to them, but would an animal work hard to get at them? I get the feeling
I'm going to need another application within a week or two, but I don't want
to risk putting them in the best places if the stupid dog is going to eat
them.

On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:10:31 +0100, "Mentalguy2k8"
wrote:

I've had enough of getting up every morning to find big holes in all my
plants... I've tried rounding the snails up at midnight by torchlight,
dumping them a few hundred yards away but I've just noticed a couple of my
plants have literally dozens of tiny baby snails stuck all over them, and
I've had enough. It's them or me!!

I've put my humane compassion aside & put down some of the metaldehyde
pellets in the obvious places, taking care to cover them or put them in
inaccessible (for pets) places like down the side of the shed and
underneath, and in all the potted plants that are off the ground.

Question is, does anyone have any experience with dogs or cats sniffing them
out and eating them? I don't think my dog (and the neighbourhood cats) can
get to them, but would an animal work hard to get at them? I get the feeling
I'm going to need another application within a week or two, but I don't want
to risk putting them in the best places if the stupid dog is going to eat
them.


Get some nematodes.
--
http://www.bra-and-pants.com
http://www.holidayunder100.co.uk

On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:10:31 +0100, "Mentalguy2k8"
wrote:

I've had enough of getting up every morning to find big holes in all my
plants... I've tried rounding the snails up at midnight by torchlight,
dumping them a few hundred yards away but I've just noticed a couple of my
plants have literally dozens of tiny baby snails stuck all over them, and
I've had enough. It's them or me!!

I've put my humane compassion aside & put down some of the metaldehyde
pellets in the obvious places, taking care to cover them or put them in
inaccessible (for pets) places like down the side of the shed and
underneath, and in all the potted plants that are off the ground.

Question is, does anyone have any experience with dogs or cats sniffing them
out and eating them? I don't think my dog (and the neighbourhood cats) can
get to them, but would an animal work hard to get at them? I get the feeling
I'm going to need another application within a week or two, but I don't want
to risk putting them in the best places if the stupid dog is going to eat
them.

When I was using pellets I never saw anything being harmed by eating
them apart from slugs. They seem to be reasonably pet safe but there
is no way I know if visiting animals and birds have trouble if they
eat the pellets.

I find the pellets themselves look a mess so I have stopped using
them. Since then my garden has adapted itself to only grow slug
resistant plants.

Steve

--
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. www.justnn.com

Neural Planner Software Ltd www.NPSL1.com
Twitter http://twitter.com/npsl1

"mogga" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:10:31 +0100, "Mentalguy2k8"
wrote:

I've had enough of getting up every morning to find big holes in all my
plants... I've tried rounding the snails up at midnight by torchlight,
dumping them a few hundred yards away but I've just noticed a couple of my
plants have literally dozens of tiny baby snails stuck all over them, and
I've had enough. It's them or me!!

I've put my humane compassion aside & put down some of the metaldehyde
pellets in the obvious places, taking care to cover them or put them in
inaccessible (for pets) places like down the side of the shed and
underneath, and in all the potted plants that are off the ground.

Question is, does anyone have any experience with dogs or cats sniffing
them
out and eating them? I don't think my dog (and the neighbourhood cats) can
get to them, but would an animal work hard to get at them? I get the
feeling
I'm going to need another application within a week or two, but I don't
want
to risk putting them in the best places if the stupid dog is going to eat
them.


Get some nematodes.

How effective are they against snails? I was under the impression they only
worked on slugs under the surface?

"Stephen Wolstenholme" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:10:31 +0100, "Mentalguy2k8"
wrote:

I've had enough of getting up every morning to find big holes in all my
plants... I've tried rounding the snails up at midnight by torchlight,
dumping them a few hundred yards away but I've just noticed a couple of my
plants have literally dozens of tiny baby snails stuck all over them, and
I've had enough. It's them or me!!

I've put my humane compassion aside & put down some of the metaldehyde
pellets in the obvious places, taking care to cover them or put them in
inaccessible (for pets) places like down the side of the shed and
underneath, and in all the potted plants that are off the ground.

Question is, does anyone have any experience with dogs or cats sniffing
them
out and eating them? I don't think my dog (and the neighbourhood cats) can
get to them, but would an animal work hard to get at them? I get the
feeling
I'm going to need another application within a week or two, but I don't
want
to risk putting them in the best places if the stupid dog is going to eat
them.

When I was using pellets I never saw anything being harmed by eating
them apart from slugs. They seem to be reasonably pet safe but there
is no way I know if visiting animals and birds have trouble if they
eat the pellets.

I find the pellets themselves look a mess so I have stopped using
them. Since then my garden has adapted itself to only grow slug
resistant plants.

Did you find the pellets effective?

The only slug/snail-resistant plants I seem to have in my garden are weeds!!
Everything else has big holes in the leaves, and various shoots chewed off
at the base. I even used an old shelving unit to put the more fragile plants
onto, but they're chewed as well and there is "snail poo" all over the top
of it. Last week I found a slug in a hanging basket, he must have climbed a
6-foot fence and made his way along the bracket into the plant

They're determined little critters!

There are two types of slug pellets out there - ones based on Metaldehyde and Methiocarb which are potentially lethal to pets, wildlife, children etc. - and Ferramol's Advanced Slug Killer Organic slug pellets which are based on Ferrous Phosphate - which is a form of iron.

These last ones are considered to be "organic" because they are based on a naturally and widely occurring substance (iron) which is not supposed to be harmful to anything aside from slugs and snails. Having said that iron can cause acute liver damage and death in mammals in even moderate doses, so there must still be a risk attached to these too.

I read a post on another forum about a garden hedgehog that was excreting turquoise droppings due to the excessive number of slug pellets it had eaten.

Though this is what the Hedgehog Preservation Society says:

"Although hedgehogs may not necessarily eat the pellets, they are very likely to eat the poisoned slugs and snails and, although these may not be lethal to hedgehogs, they may cause serious internal damage. If you must use slug pellets, put them inside pieces of pipe or under stone slabs where hedgehogs can't get at them. We believe, however, that a "beer-trap" (i.e. a pot of stale beer sunk in the ground) is an equally effective way of killing slugs. In any case, as an extra precaution, all dead slugs should be regularly removed."

Metal (Iron or Aluminium) based pellets are at least as effective as metaldehyde in terms of dispatching slugs, so there's no need to use something as toxic and indiscriminate in it's actions these days.

If you don't want to use pellets there are all sorts of other options depending on how large an area you need to protect. Depending on the size of area/plants that you need to protect barriers can be extremely effective and are much more permanent than any pellets particularly during wet weather.

Spiky things like crushed eggshells, old scourers and sharp gravel are certainly effective. Ecocharlie recycled ceramic shard work even better since they absorb the mucous and stop the slugs getting across at all, as well as being spiky.

You can also use copper bands which give them a tiny electric shock, and placing traps - beer traps, as above, or just pieces of wood, stone, card or carpet that act as shelters - outside the barriers will allow you to collect them in the day time.

Another option are "Nemaslug" nematodes - parasites of slugs and snails that live in the soil & that you water into the ground.

On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:23:02 +0100, "Mentalguy2k8"
wrote:

Did you find the pellets effective?


Not really. They kill slugs on contact but there always seems to be
more live ones lurking about.

The only slug/snail-resistant plants I seem to have in my garden are weeds!!

My garden has slowly reached a balance of slug free plants. I think
the majority are plants that I would describe as a bit too rough for
slugs to eat. Then there are a lot of very small bushes. At the moment
the flowering areas are dominated by geraniums and Saponaria that
slugs don't touch.

Everything else has big holes in the leaves, and various shoots chewed off
at the base. I even used an old shelving unit to put the more fragile plants
onto, but they're chewed as well and there is "snail poo" all over the top
of it. Last week I found a slug in a hanging basket, he must have climbed a
6-foot fence and made his way along the bracket into the plant

They're determined little critters!

I have seen snails climbing up the house walls. It's a mystery what
they are looking for.

Steve

--
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. www.justnn.com

Neural Planner Software Ltd www.NPSL1.com
Twitter http://twitter.com/npsl1

On 23/08/2010 17:59, Stephen Wolstenholme wrote:
On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:23:02 +0100, "Mentalguy2k8"
wrote:
They're determined little critters!

I have seen snails climbing up the house walls. It's a mystery what
they are looking for.


Don't leave any windows unlocked, before you know it they'll nick your
telly! ;-)


--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

On 23/08/2010 17:23, Mentalguy2k8 wrote:


Did you find the pellets effective?


Personally I find slug pellets very effective. I hate using them though
but sometimes it seems necessary to bring out the "big guns" against the
slugs and snails. Once plants are beyond seedling stage I leave them too
it, but like to scatter slug pellets around seed trays. A fat slug or
snail can scoff an entire tray of emerging lettuce seedlings in one
sitting. :-(

There has been a lot of frogs and toads around this year, they seem to
have been helping to keep the population down in the garden. We've also
got lots of birds foraging between the plants, so hopefully they are
contributing to the control too.

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

On 23/08/2010 15:10, Mentalguy2k8 wrote:
I've had enough of getting up every morning to find big holes in all my
plants... I've tried rounding the snails up at midnight by torchlight,
dumping them a few hundred yards away but I've just noticed a couple of
my plants have literally dozens of tiny baby snails stuck all over them,
and I've had enough. It's them or me!!

I've put my humane compassion aside & put down some of the metaldehyde
pellets in the obvious places, taking care to cover them or put them in
inaccessible (for pets) places like down the side of the shed and
underneath, and in all the potted plants that are off the ground.

Question is, does anyone have any experience with dogs or cats sniffing
them out and eating them? I don't think my dog (and the neighbourhood
cats) can get to them, but would an animal work hard to get at them? I
get the feeling I'm going to need another application within a week or
two, but I don't want to risk putting them in the best places if the
stupid dog is going to eat them.



I have a similar problem with pets and slug treatments. Rather than use
pellets, I use liquid Slug Clear by Scotts (250ml bottle makes 75 Ltrs).
This is watered on and kills snails, slugs(esp. small soil-dwelling
slugs which do a lot of damage)and their eggs. For a day or two after
application, I check the garden for lingering poisoned corpses
(snails/large slugs) and dispose of them before birds or hedgehogs eat
them. I find the result most effective and more long-lasting than
pellets. Furthermore, it seems to have the added benefit of deterring/
killing pests (inc. aphids, Red Lily Beetle, etc) which feed on
poison-drenched foliage.

Naturally, one needs to be careful with edible plants. My husband (RG
on this group) prefers to use pellets on the veg patch. However, these
need reapplying after rain so, presumably some of the poison is washed
into the soil.

My neighbour used the nematode drench on her garden last year, even
though she said it was expensive. She wasn't that impressed last year,
but *this* year she hasn't seen any slugs and is wondering if the
nematode has multiplied and been more effective. It would be great if
this was true, but I have a feeling that the nematode treatment is
temperature-/season-sensitiive (perhaps someone else on urg can
comment?), in which case the glacial winter we've just had would have
killed off the nematodes.

My best advice would be use liquid Slug Clear in the ornamental garden
and trial some of the organic deterrents on the GC shelf, or use sharp grit.


Spider
from high ground in SE London
gardening on clay

"David in Normandy" wrote in message
r...
On 23/08/2010 17:23, Mentalguy2k8 wrote:


Did you find the pellets effective?


Personally I find slug pellets very effective. I hate using them though
but sometimes it seems necessary to bring out the "big guns" against the
slugs and snails. Once plants are beyond seedling stage I leave them too
it, but like to scatter slug pellets around seed trays. A fat slug or
snail can scoff an entire tray of emerging lettuce seedlings in one
sitting. :-(

Likewise, I really didn't want to kill them but I tried everything from
talking nicely to them to collecting them all and throwing them into the
local wooded areas. But I can't spend hours outside every night picking them
up, and it's not effective for slugs who only seem to eat my plants when I'm
indoors. One planter (measuring about 1 foot by 6 inches) with one of those
arrangements from the garden centre (a little conifer and a few pansies
round the edge) I spent an hour on the other morning and picked out *27*
tiny baby snails. Most of my garden is patio so I have to use pots for the
plants, I was picking them up every evening and putting them on tables, with
a special "quarantine" area for any plants that I found snails in. But as I
said, I've had enough now. Most of my stuff isn't going to stay in flower
much longer so I want to keep hold of what I've got.


There has been a lot of frogs and toads around this year, they seem to
have been helping to keep the population down in the garden. We've also
got lots of birds foraging between the plants, so hopefully they are
contributing to the control too.

We live quite near wooded areas, but we're just too far away to attract many
birds, they obviously get enough from the woods. I've never seen a hedgehog
here either, but we're pretty much all fenced in. Same for toads and frogs,
unless a bird happens to drop a creature overhead, we just don't get them.
Shame you can't buy hedgehogs at the pet shop

"Stephen Wolstenholme" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:23:02 +0100, "Mentalguy2k8"
wrote:

Did you find the pellets effective?


Not really. They kill slugs on contact but there always seems to be
more live ones lurking about.

According to the nematode sites, a cubic metre of soil contains an average
of 200 slugs...


The only slug/snail-resistant plants I seem to have in my garden are
weeds!!

My garden has slowly reached a balance of slug free plants. I think
the majority are plants that I would describe as a bit too rough for
slugs to eat. Then there are a lot of very small bushes. At the moment
the flowering areas are dominated by geraniums and Saponaria that
slugs don't touch.

Everything else has big holes in the leaves, and various shoots chewed off
at the base. I even used an old shelving unit to put the more fragile
plants
onto, but they're chewed as well and there is "snail poo" all over the top
of it. Last week I found a slug in a hanging basket, he must have climbed
a
6-foot fence and made his way along the bracket into the plant

They're determined little critters!

I have seen snails climbing up the house walls. It's a mystery what
they are looking for.

I keep finding them in the watering can, it always rattles when I pick it
up... I've noticed that there are some plants they won't eat and some they
seem to love. They definitely seem to prefer the younger plants to the
established ones. I've got a small rose which they go around to get to the
other stuff, but it's been treated with blackfly spray so maybe that's why.

"Stephen Wolstenholme" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:23:02 +0100, "Mentalguy2k8"
wrote:

Did you find the pellets effective?


Not really. They kill slugs on contact but there always seems to be
more live ones lurking about.

I am fortunate that a large boar hedgehog lives under my neighbour's shed,
and regularly patrols our row of gardens :-}

Only drawback is when he goes a-courting or a rival turns up. The noise is
indescribable!

--
Kathy

"Spider" wrote in message
...
On 23/08/2010 15:10, Mentalguy2k8 wrote:
I've had enough of getting up every morning to find big holes in all my
plants... I've tried rounding the snails up at midnight by torchlight,
dumping them a few hundred yards away but I've just noticed a couple of
my plants have literally dozens of tiny baby snails stuck all over them,
and I've had enough. It's them or me!!

I've put my humane compassion aside & put down some of the metaldehyde
pellets in the obvious places, taking care to cover them or put them in
inaccessible (for pets) places like down the side of the shed and
underneath, and in all the potted plants that are off the ground.

Question is, does anyone have any experience with dogs or cats sniffing
them out and eating them? I don't think my dog (and the neighbourhood
cats) can get to them, but would an animal work hard to get at them? I
get the feeling I'm going to need another application within a week or
two, but I don't want to risk putting them in the best places if the
stupid dog is going to eat them.



I have a similar problem with pets and slug treatments. Rather than use
pellets, I use liquid Slug Clear by Scotts (250ml bottle makes 75 Ltrs).
This is watered on and kills snails, slugs(esp. small soil-dwelling slugs
which do a lot of damage)and their eggs. For a day or two after
application, I check the garden for lingering poisoned corpses
(snails/large slugs) and dispose of them before birds or hedgehogs eat
them. I find the result most effective and more long-lasting than
pellets. Furthermore, it seems to have the added benefit of deterring/
killing pests (inc. aphids, Red Lily Beetle, etc) which feed on
poison-drenched foliage.

Naturally, one needs to be careful with edible plants. My husband (RG on
this group) prefers to use pellets on the veg patch. However, these need
reapplying after rain so, presumably some of the poison is washed into the
soil.

My neighbour used the nematode drench on her garden last year, even though
she said it was expensive. She wasn't that impressed last year, but
*this* year she hasn't seen any slugs and is wondering if the nematode has
multiplied and been more effective. It would be great if this was true,
but I have a feeling that the nematode treatment is
temperature-/season-sensitiive (perhaps someone else on urg can comment?),
in which case the glacial winter we've just had would have killed off the
nematodes.

My best advice would be use liquid Slug Clear in the ornamental garden and
trial some of the organic deterrents on the GC shelf, or use sharp grit.

I will look out for the liquid Slug Clear for sure... I might also
experiment with a trail of sand around the pots and borders

On 23/08/2010 16:59, Stephen Wolstenholme wrote:
On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:23:02 +0100, "Mentalguy2k8"
wrote:

Did you find the pellets effective?


Not really. They kill slugs on contact but there always seems to be
more live ones lurking about.

The only slug/snail-resistant plants I seem to have in my garden are weeds!!

My garden has slowly reached a balance of slug free plants. I think
the majority are plants that I would describe as a bit too rough for
slugs to eat. Then there are a lot of very small bushes. At the moment
the flowering areas are dominated by geraniums and Saponaria that
slugs don't touch.

Everything else has big holes in the leaves, and various shoots chewed off
at the base. I even used an old shelving unit to put the more fragile plants
onto, but they're chewed as well and there is "snail poo" all over the top
of it. Last week I found a slug in a hanging basket, he must have climbed a
6-foot fence and made his way along the bracket into the plant

They're determined little critters!

I have seen snails climbing up the house walls. It's a mystery what
they are looking for.

Steve


I had always assumed they were taking on calcium/minerals/?whatever? to
build up and strengthen their shells as they grow.

--
Spider
from high ground in SE London
gardening on clay