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Slugs: How to get rid of them?

twotone

pfm Member
Hi guys, need a bit of advice, I have slugs coming into a back porch that I use as a cafe basically, so it’s a sort of utility room where the animals are fed and where I make coffee, there’s a sink, a freezer and a fridge however the slugs are only after the cat’s food, she’s fed on the worktop cause the dog will eat her food and her otherwise:D

Anyway I think I know where they’re getting in which is via a drain pipe and then up into the sink then onto the worktop to where the cat’s food bowl would be during the day.

We never leave food out especially at night the dog never leaves food anyway but the cat is grazer so we need to leave her food out until she’s finished and anything left in her bowl goes into the fridge and the dog’s empty bowl goes into a basin of washing up water in the sink.

The slugs don’t appear to like coffee beans so ever cloud and all that.

I can get something to stop them getting into the sink but I think they’ll just find another way in to the porch so what’s the best way to deal with them bearing in mind we have two animals?

Thanks

Tony
 
Try sluicing out the waste with a nicely strong solution of brine.

Wily sods, slugs. Earlier this summer I discovered an infestation in a cistern at my mum's house. This was on the first floor looking out over a shingle covered flat garage roof. They were entering via the overflow pipe, but the journey involved in getting there from the nearest patch of ground soil was not short! Breeding had clearly occurred given the various sizes and god knows what they were living off, maybe mineral deposits from the water.
 
"Anyway I think I know where they’re getting in which is via a drain pipe and then up into the sink then onto the worktop to where the cat’s food bowl would be during the day."

^^ Wrap the area with copper tape.

I have had issues too with slugs and my rabbit enclosure, so entry points, bowls etc. are copper taped up.
 
Put a plug in the sink at night?

Think they’d just go up the overflow hard to believe how determined they are. I could put a basin of water on top of the plug but I think they’d still get under the basin and then out or as above up the overflow.

I think I can get a non return valve for the waste pipe but no doubt they’d get past that too
 
Hedgepigs??

That’s a myth…. We feed hedgehogs every night and can confirm they will happily share a food bowl with slugs, with more slugs hanging off the ceiling of the feeder and reaching the bowl via the hedgehog’s back!

Keeping slugs out of the feeding station has been an ambition for years. We have tried coffee grounds, ground up seashells, and just about every other barrier recommended by gardeners. The only barrier that slowed them down was miles of copper tape around every possible access point, plus a few places that looked like impossible access points! This only slowed them down as I guess they slimed over the tape bit by bit.

Our only partial successes have been with beer traps (with continuous maintenance), violence (going out every night with a spade - I’ll leave the rest to your imaginations), and the high-cost option of Nemaslug or similar which was very effective but for a few weeks only before needing another wedge of cash throwing it the manufacturer (which to be fair is what the manufacturer states).

Like the hogs we’ve decided to put up with the slugs….
 
They might be living under the fridge.

No they’re not I can see under it sits about three inches above the floor.

There’s no trails showing outside or inside so they’re getting in somewhere which is why I’m pretty sure it’s the drain pipe they’re using to get in and get to the food bowl.

They must be living in the drain there’s the odd trail around the bins but the bins are a wee bit away from the house and the back door but the slugs are at the worktop nearly every night.
 
When I had rats in my garden, the slugs used to eat the rodenticide in the bait stations. Formidable little feckers.
 
@twotone If you've got easy access to the bottom of the waste pipe the slugs are coming up, you could try stuffing some scrunched up mettle mesh up it. It seems to have stopped the snails blocking up my conservatory gutter downpipe.
 


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