One for the toad?

I get lots of the huge orange ones, they get evicted over the back wall in a leafy wrap, they don't do much damage now I've got my garden going a bit healthier - I can't kill them, they're sort of cute in a sluggy eurrrgh way! :D

Yes the big black ones only eat the dead plants & dustbin fodder don't they?

 

As you probably know, most vegan/strong vegetarians don't believe in depriving anything of life. We live opposite a large "moor" which used to be a coal pit until 1984. Everything of this sluggy type gets moved over there where it can do no harm.
When we first moved here in 2000, and occupied a house unused for many years, it transpired that we had a sewage outlet that had never been properly attached to the main, and as we were the end of the line for the whole road of about 50 houses we had a few months grace before we began to have oveflows, leading to the necessity for the local water board to come and investigate. After many months of to-ing and fro-ing and a final Christmas Eve overflow, they finally decided they were to blame and dug everything up and installed a new main pipe. They had also sent a cleaning team on each occasion as we had a very interesting 10foot wide "moat" of raw sewage aound the concrete path surrounding the house, and although we scrubbed and disinfected each time it wan't possible to effect a complete cleanse. This was of course great fun each time all five cats and a dog wanted to go outside, and paddled through the moat! I think we used up every old cloth or rag and gallons of dettol etc over those months. Anyway- the upshot of all this was that for the next 5 years we have been plagued with black slugs and snails. The slugs were obviously feeding off the residue of sewage and any other rotting items, however small and the snails fed from the -now very lush- grass where the overflow had been. HOWEVER this year we have been blessed with a family of hedgehogs - who provide the greatest of interest to my little dog each night and who actually 'hoover up' the slugs with great speed (and sometimes snails too I regret) although this is all natural and not instigated by me - so no guilty feelings! So- first hand knowledge - black slugs eat rotted and other disgusting matter.

 

Lovely story Eleagnus and I hope the sceptics here who say that they have never seen a hedgehog eat a slug are satisfied. (Autumn Watch showed film of them doing so also!)