To feel sorry for the slugs?

[GreenSlide]

I'm a member of a few gardening pages, one of which makes a point of not allowing comments about killing insects or other creatures, but people still do it. There are awful comments from people who drown slugs in beer, use slug pellets, I've even seen people saying they go out at night to hunt them and cut them in half with scissors

It's not that I'm a fan of slugs, I get how annoying it is to lose plants to them (they ate my dahlias last year and a whole crop of kohl rabi) but there are other ways to deter them that aren't cruel. The main one being just don't grow things that slugs like to eat.

I know there are bigger issues in the world right now, and I do have plenty of other things to worry about! But AIBU to also care about the slugs?

Don't go around cutting them. I use more natural ways. Nematodes are a god send. After seasons from hell I even managed to have lettuce thanks to them!

I don't really like killing them so I put them in the top of the compost bin to eat the weeds there. Last summer I put those rectangular plastic tubs that tomatoes come in over the top of my lettuces and pegged them down with tent pegs I left them on as long as possible and it seemed to protect them until they were big enough not to be killed by slugs.

I chop them and leave them for the birds and hedgehogs to eat. I feel like that is the most humane and environmentally friendly way.

🙄 Yeah, that’s the most humane way. Attention seeking t*.

YANBU OP.

Slugs are just homeless snails

Nematodes are a natural parasite on slugs and reduce the numbers enough that it is possible to grow veg in the garden. In my small city garden with no natural predators, there is not much else that can be done about them.

How may I ask do those of you who think slugs deserve to live, deal with headlice? Fleas and ticks on your pets? When does a creature become so disgusting it deserves to die just because you deem it irritating /disgusting enough?

I'm a happy slug slayer BTW.

Tbf it's way better than poison granules...
As pp said, they don't feel pain (at least that's what I've been told years ago). But I don't have stomach for it. I certainly hope snails don't feel pain👀 They are very hard to spot after dark in the lawn...

My neighbour goes put with a bag of salt at about 10pm mid summer. She says it kills them and dries them up and it makes them easier to pick up in the morning.
I did suggest chopping them might be kinder if she's killing them but she seems comitted to her salt method.
I use the copper tape everywhere which helped but they still got my dahlias and marigolds last year.

I'm just researching nemitodes for this year.

One summer evening I went to the garden and kidding you not- there was a tiny slug on every single blade of grass.
I’m fighting a losing battle- tried beer traps,copper tape,egg shells,oats and heck knows what else.
This year I’m buying nematodes.
I’m sick of all my veg and flowers being chomped all the time.
Why they can’t eat dock,nettles,ground elder or dandelions?
Nope. There’s pot of tasty marigolds,let’s go and eat every single tip and the flowerbuds. Errrm. No.
Piss of elsewhere you slimy creatures.

Chickens are doing great job cleaning up the garden for me.
Nematodes will hopefully sort out the rest once it’s a bit warmer

I can recommend the nematodes. Just make sure you follow the instructions. Wait for right temperatures, water properly.

I use beer traps. I think they are pretty humane. The slugs die happy 🤷

When I moved into this property we had a huge slug issue. A lot of it was sorted out by having dogs. I suspect what happened was there were a lot of cats using my garden, the wild birds weren't that prominent about. They were around but not as much as they are now.
The introduction of dogs scared away the cats, the birds came back and they ate a lot of the slugs. Now I don't see that many slugs.

Circle of life. Goes to show the impact of outdoor cats on the ecosystem.

I feel sorry for them too. I found two of them eating my cats’ food at about 11pm one night. No idea how they got in (through a locked cat flap?) but I just looked at them, thought about all the options for getting rid of them, couldn’t face any of them so I just said, “Look, lads, just make sure you’re not here when I wake up tomorrow morning, all right?” And they weren’t!

I hear you. My Nan used to throw boiling water on ant nests, but my dad used to show me how clever they were by leaving little crumbs of food or a salvaged dead bug. I still have such an admiration for ants, but I know I’m deemed unreasonable by wider society.

@madamedesevigne love that! 🤣

Unexpected slugs are only expected at night.

I feel this is appropriate to leave here

(I mostly put mine on the compost heap but I don't disagree with killing them - humans would starve if we tried to share all our crops with the pests that also want to eat them and anyone who eats anything from a shop is complicit in the killing of food pests so...)

I can’t bring myself to kill them.A ring of ash around the base of pots seems to work. Saved my sunflowers and sweet peas last year. Need to find a humane caterpillar solution though, lost my cauliflowers to them.

Yanbu
I have a phobia of them proper shake and hate seeing one.prob about once a week I get one in my kitchen at night poss through the cat flap or a hole.I Get tissue and put them carefully outside they are living creatures x

I use beer traps, eggshells, have raised beds with gravel all around and still the bastards eat my veggies. So I now have several beer traps and will also cut them up and stick them on the bird table.

I won't use slug pellets as they're nasty things and get right through the natural food chain - but don't get sanctimonious about people killing slugs FGS

Hedgehogs only eat slugs if their preferred food source (caterpillars, beetles etc) aren’t available.

When they do, they often get potentially fatal lungworm.

Don’t kid yourself you’re helping the hogs by tortuously cutting up animals (which they wouldn’t need anyway. Their teeth are just fine).

You’re better off buying Tesco own brand kitten food

My mum is a companion planter and uses organic ancient methods.

She plants sacrificial crops for slugs, who then eat less of the things she wants to grow. The slugs in turn are food for other wildlife and as it's all organic nothing suffers.

@Ireallymustgotobed

I can’t bring myself to kill them.A ring of ash around the base of pots seems to work. Saved my sunflowers and sweet peas last year. Need to find a humane caterpillar solution though, lost my cauliflowers to them.

Plant cabbage in a corner far away. I have a corner away from veg where I have cabbage and bit of a wilderness and most insect moves there. Cabbage lives forver btw. Going on year 4 the same plant😱

I'm not a gardener but last year we grew a bit of veg. The many slugs we have never really bothered with it, but if they had, so be it.
I cannot understand people who kill creatures just so they can have pretty flowers to look at. There's nothing humane about killing things for that reason

@GreenSlide YANBU at all. (To care about the slugs and snails. They are all God's creatures after all!)

However, as a pp said, they do decimate the garden somewhat, so are a bit of a PITA!

We don't have to do anything though (fortunately!) We have a couple of families of hedgehogs in our (biggish) garden, and they eat slugs!

Job done! And we don't have to do anything. No slugs (or very few!) our garden and the plant life intact, and the hedgehogs have full bellies! (Slugs, and the hedgehog food and cat food that we give them, and anything else they can find!)

By the way, I certainly don't chop the slugs up! That's grim!

Everything you eat was a living thing that has been killed for your nourishment.

@MrsRobinsonsHandprints

Chickens solve the slug problem, although I'm not convinced it's humane. The feathery fuckers bring their own issues though.

Muscovy ducks are the best for this.