Slug pellets

Hi All,

I am a regular reader of the forum now and I must say that I'm very impressed by the collective knowledge of Gardeners Corner members! I feel slightly guilty asking questions and not being able to provide expert advice, but I promise to do my bit in ten, twenty years once I've gathered enough skills and experience!

The big question for today is: how bad are slug pellets for wildlife in the garden? Am I doing a lot of harm by using them? I tried organic ones a couple of years ago, but my plants were devoured just the same. Using a copper ribbon of some sort - if it turns out to be ineffective - could be too time-consuming and too expensive (I have loads of plants in containers and in flower beds).

Am I doing too much harm to birds and other visitors in my garden?

Thanks again for your help.

 

Well,they're certainly really bad for the slugs!
I use slug pellets and still have other wildlife. My garden is not full of dead birds, for example - but maybe they fly off and die in the neighbours gardens.

I do impose some limits - I only put them down for vulnerable plants such as young seedlings that can be destroyed in a few chomps, or hostas that will be ruined for the season by a bad attack. Everything else has to take its chances. They are not really necessary in very dry weather.

Effectively, then, they are only really needed for a window of time in Spring, about mid March to the end of May, less if the weather is warm and dry. I can live with this and apparently so can other wildlife.

 

Ban all alcohol!!!!!

.

Some years ago a speaker at the garden club when asked by an old dear who was afraid of wiping out every living creature in her garden if she was to use the dreaded pellets!

He asked her did she drink alcohol, she said she did, well he said they were a type on concetrated alcohol, which she did not believe!

Have just looked up Metaldhyde, type of Acetaldehyde (systematically ethenal), found in coffee, bread ripe fruit, (drunk elephants in India) which is made from Ethenol best known as a "THE" type of alcohol in booze.

I use the blue boys sparingly, and in my garden have a female hedgehog (loads of young several times a season fed on cat food) under the shed for yonks.
Frogs and newts.

Lots of birds as next door feeds them, at the moment nesting blackbirds and a pair of robins both sitting on eggs,

I feel the wildlife have more nous than the people who appear to think that the world as we know it, will end if they use pellets!


Ps don't let on to "Dave Boy or Cleggy" that they contain alcohol as they would slap a tax on them!

.

 

Thanks very much for the replies, you've certainly given me food for thought. I do try to use pellets sparingly and I'll try madahhlia's method of not using them in dry weather. Makka-bakka, I like your evolutionary argument, it's time to give birds et al a bit more credit when it comes to survival skills. And come to think of it, these are Scottish birds, resistance to booze will be part of their DNA. Thanks for putting it into perspective!

 

I'm afraid I am against the use of slug pellets and never use them in my garden, the birds don't eat the pellets but they eat the snails who have eaten the pellets!! hedgehogs eat a lot of slugs & snails, again if they happen to eat some which have been feeding on pellets they will die!!

Val

 

Like has been mentioned, I only use them around vulnerable plants. The wood pidgeons ate the ones I put round my seedlings last week. Don't seem to have done them any harm, they're still waiting for me to put some more out for them:DOH:

Beer traps are just as effective, only problem there is, I don't drink beer anymore

Try a few saucers full under the hostas, you'd be suprised what has drunk itself to death in the morning, saying that, i've often found the saucers completly empty. Hedgepigs love a slug & beer soup

 

I too try to avoid using them, although I have done, and probably will again.

As Gemini mentioned, the problem is not that the wildlife eats the pellets, but they eat the slugs that have eaten the pellets.

That said, if they see off the blackbirds that watch me planting stuff, and then immediately come and dig it up when I go in, then maybe they do protect the plants. (I like blackbirds really, but they are cheeky monkeys).

I've never had too much trouble with slugs and snails really. Perhaps because I usually grow nasturtium which is a well documented 'decoy plant', i.e. it attracts pests apparently so they leave other stuff alone. Although that's not why I include nasturtium in my garden. Perhaps it's because we had a hedgehog at the last house, and frogs at the new house, and perhaps it's because I always start seedlings indoors nowadays so they get to build up some strength before facing the wrath of nature outside. Perhaps its a combination of all of these things that keeps slugs and snails from destroying everything I try to grow.

 

There is always the night time patrol method, with a torch and bucket of water with washing up liquid in it!

 

.

Although I made a slight joke about using slug pellets in an earlier posting, it amazes me how some people get steamed up about what they will and will not use and look down their noses at those who do, when on about being "organic" when gardening!

Some of my work collegues, male and female, are veggies, take soya milk , not nasty cows milk, eat "organic" vegetables and other crazy notions, BUT and it is a BIG BUT!, some of them drink alcohol or have a crafty smoke some do recreational (illegal) drugs, they are quite open about what they do, but that's all right, they can handle it and none of these will do them any harm!

These are well educated people, not snotty nosed teenagers who think they know it all.

But to uses chemicals to help plants grow, well!!

Ps. we work in a chemical factory inviroment, and depend on chemicals for our living!

.

 

Personally I have nothing but admiration for people who try to live an 'alternative' lifestyle! Many people are vegetarians and drink soya milk not only because they believe it is better for their health but that it is also better for the planet. Soya milk = less cattle being kept on the land which could be used for growing instead, and the plight of the 'milking' cow is a thread of it's own!!!!
Using chemicals to help plants grow is fine, providing you are not killing anything else in doing so!!

Val

 

I don't know where the debate begins and ends either ... do you use Blood, Fish and Bone as being organic? or worry about the fact that they come from factory farmed animals (no doubt there are Organic versions available ... hard to find ... prohibitively expensive for most people).

My view is to do what I can, and have some means of measuring it so I can set a goal, and/or feel I have achieved something.

We have halved our water and electricity use, more than halved our petrol use (through more fuel efficient cars and changed driving style); we halved our Oil usage for central heating and have since removed the oil boiler and switched to wood. We have reduced our air travel by at least half.

We grow 80% or more of our own veg, and only use chemicals on that once in a blue moon.

But we use more than the average energy per house, use chemicals to control weeds and bugs in the flower garden, drink wine and buy Chinese goods that are transported half way round the globe. Although there are fireworks in the Kitchen when I find a punnet of high-air-miles and tasteless Strawberries in the fridge in the middle of Winter!