Can Slugs Swim? - a mollusc genocide

Warning. People of sensitive natures, particularly when related to gastropod molluscs of reduced or no shell are recommended to stop reading now and if any molluscs are reading you probably also want to stop too.

I hate slugs, I loathe them. Some people say "well it's not their fault that they're slugs" but I'm sorry this carries no weight with me. They could eat the weeds in my garden rather than the beans if they cared at all. So I'm sorry but they have to die.

I have small children and pets and there are hedgehogs and slow worms in the garden, although obviously not enough (hedgehogs and slow worms, not children), so I'm reluctant to use poison, and in any case why grow your own food and then use chemicals if not necessary.

I have a beer trap which is quite effective. If it was me I could think of worse ways to go but I doubt slugs think like this (or at all?) I caught 20 in one night with this once, but at the cost of a bottle of beer - that can't be good.

So I walk around the garden after a storm and pick the little darlings up and then throw them in the stream at the bottom of the garden. We had a storm last night and afterwards I went out and get 120 in 10 minutes on a piece of land smaller than half a basketball court.

So my question is can slugs swim? From Wikipedia it is clear that there are some slugs with gills but they seem to live in the sea, not in my garden. My experience is that they sink. I just hope that they aren't all just crawling back out of the stream again and heading for my back door with revenge in mind.

ETA sorry I wanted to add a picture, not of my garden ones but from the local forest.

I'm pretty sure they can just crawl back out again. Depends on how deep the stream is etc, and I'm sure not all of them will make it, but I've found snail quite happily ensconsed in my full watering can.

Have you tried nematodes, they're supposed to be pretty handy - and gastropod / mollusc specific. ALthough the best method is a very hard winter and clearing out the dead leaves / hibernating places.

If you've a local park you could try disposing of them in bucketfuls over there. It's a humane and slightly less messy alternative to just squishing them.

I wish I had slow worms and hedgehogs I've plenty of gastropods to feed them.

Don't feel bad, Barry. All the wet weather we've had here on the East Coast has made for a bumper crop of slugs. Everyone I've talked to says this is the worst they have ever seen them. Bags of a product called Slug Bait are flying off the store shelves. I can't put our beer or the dog will drink it. I bought the Slug Bait, but first I made sure that it won't hurt anything else. It is a just form of iron mixed with something to attract the slugs. They eat it, can't process it, and it kills them off. I have no problem being 'inhumane' to something that is over-running my garden and eating just about everything I've planted. Especially since the only place I put down the bait is around my plants. The slugs are all over the rest of our 2.6 acre property. There are hundreds of others for every one I've killed.

If you don't want to try the Slug Bait you can try salting them. }:o) It's messier than dropping them into a stream. But a it's more of a sure thing.

oh man clamairy - isn't it like something out of the plagues of Egypt? Every time I go for my walk it's like a slug dodge. Yuk. I so do not want to step on one of them. Shudder.

Yes, everything has as much right to live as everything else. And I don't have a garden, so the slugs can came hang around my yard as much as they want to.

But they're so . . . shamelessly indecent. Naked and slimy. PUT A SHELL ON, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!!!! If I ran around all the time without anything on, I wouldn't be surprised if some Greater Power had the urge to squish me, too.

PUT A SHELL ON

lol!!!

I'll try shouting this at them tonight

#4 - Yes, they are all over the walk and driveway in the early hours. I swear the slugs were gray on Long Island, these Connecticut slugs are an amber color. Not sure if that is due to a different mineral content in the soil, or a steady diet of my favorite herbs and string bean plants. :oP

#5 & #6 - I don't mind the nekkid part as much as the slimy part and the 'leaving a visible goo-trail part.' *shudder*

Okay, I officially have a case of the heebie-jeebies.

My garden doesn't run much to slugs, thank God, but you guys had me laughing about them.

We have Japanese beetles and every evening KB and I go out with cups of soapy water to drown them in. Our granddaughter loves this exercise, especially grinding the remains in the disposal.

I don't seem to get very many slugs where I am now. Where I used to live I had a permanent beer trap in the yard to catch the icky things. I did put one in the toilet once and forgot to flush it down. The next morning I shambled into the washroom and stepped right on the slug which had crawled out the toilet and almost out the door. uggg. They don't seem to swim as well in the beer, but maybe that's cause they're taking advantage of the offering and have become too inebriated.

Hey, next time you get a bucket full...


*whirrrrrrrrrrrrrr!*

Eeeeewwwwwww!!!

I've gotten fond of these ones

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6tDyXBeY2Q

groo - Calvin would certainly appreciate that. Making bug butter by hand is such a chore.

Don't geese eat slugs? Or is it ducks?? There must be some purpose for their living! Grand-niece, aged 1.5 years, thinks they are for picking up! OMG, my worst nightmare is trying to get slug goo off her little hands before the, the hands that is, go up her nose!

Hate slugs. I throw them over my fence into the blackberry patch. It you slug bait consistently around your garden you can create a slug free zone; but it does take eternal vigilance, just like protecting our Freedoms and Our Way of Life!

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty (from slugs and other pests).

I'm shocked, shocked, at the slug bashing going on here.

I mean this is a face, amirite?

Slugs don't have faces...

Ummmmm, actually, it's a red x in a little square.

#17 - Aw, I can't see it. I happen to think that slugs and snails are some kind of cute. That being said, I am merciless to them in my yard. Survival of the biggest and strongest, right?

I think Slug Bait is the only thing which works consistently. I have a very large yard. Ducks work also, but you have to remember that ducks are omnivores and will happily eat your little precious plants right along with the slugs. Meat salad, yum. Also, ducks leave fertilizer offerings all over your yard, usually where you walk.

Barry,
You talk about slugs as if they were ... pets!

I just looked at your Profile Page. Why don't you just collect the !@#$ things and bring to a local restaurant? You could sell them by the pound, or the kilo, I suppose...

#19 - I'm using FireFox, so I don't even see the red X...

OK, how about this lovely?



Even I'm not wacky enough to KNIT one, tho.

*starts sautéing garlic in butter*

Now that looks like a banana slug. But really....I DON'T CARE, I DON'T CARE...and in case it is not clear...I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

clam, I'm betting that's polyester yarn, so make sure you don't saute it, please.

No, I'll cook the real one, and Barry can be our taste tester. :oD

All this talk of murdering gastropods, mind the Ghost Slug doesn't come and get you :)

#11 Groo thanks that was a real coffee-spewing moment. It's not a good time at work and that really got me smiling in a chair-falling out of sort of way.

I have seen one or two recipes re slugs on the web, particularly banana slugs! Unfortunately none of them are common in France. I think the problem is that their pathetic excuse for a shell is particularly poor for stuffing plenty of garlic butter in.

I do see the slugs as pets in some ways, just ones that I like to murder wholesale ;-) One of the reasons that I don't like to poison is that I really quite like the snails and the poison doesn't discriminate.

I should add an additional detail here that despite being less than 20 miles from a European Capital the stream where I dump them is also our sewer (this sounds much worse than it is - sort of) so the little darlings won't just have "normal" water to deal with.

As far as animal control is concerned, I firmly believe that hedgehogs are the way to go. We have at least one, we sometimes catch her eating the cats food (whilst the cat hisses but stays well away). My wife loves hedgehogs so I've bought her The Hedgehog's Dilemma for her birthday tomorrow in the hope that it might give her some tips for encouraging a few more to come.

Finally an apology for my intermittent posting - I loved all of the replies and would have got in sooner but again my internet connection at home is dead at the moment so I have to wait until I get to work.

To answer the original question: There are salt water slugs that can swim (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHDjs1mG13Q), there are fresh water slugs that swim, but I doubt your land slugs can swim. However, they probably won't drown either. They float to the floor and crawl out of the water. You don't have to feel guilty killing them.
Slugs/snails eat decomposing leaves and other organic material and they need a wet environment. If you avoid that, no more slugs/snails.

#30 thanks for the info - sadly youtube is blocked at work but I'll check it out at some point. I guess at least if I chuck them in the stream then I'll get rid of at least 50% as half should choose to go out the other side. It might even be more as my side is a lot steeper than the other side - also there are chickens on the other side - maybe I could fit trackers on them and do an analysis??!?

I'd read the stuff about damp areas and decomposing leaves. Unfortunately my neighbour has a long thick hedge along our garden junction which I reckon is almost certainly a perfect habitat for slugs. As I generally find the ones in my garden within a couple of metres of the hedge this would seem to confirm it. Occasionally I'm tempted to try to sabotage it but he's a really nice guy always giving us plants or fresh veg and we buy the eggs from his chickens so I could never do that. I just have to live with it.

#28 - I love that the alien species of slug first appeared in Cardiff!

#32 - hahahahahaha!

If Chris Packham were reading this he'd be spinning in his anorak.

I gather ours and release them on the field at the back of the house. Can you invest in a hedgehog nest or two to encourage them to stay in your garden? They love slugs to eat.

And I think I read that copper bands around plant pots discourage slugs and snails from climbing up them.

Thanks JRE. It's my wife's birthday today and she loves hedgehogs - I never realised that you could buy boxes/nests for them for your garden and you can even put cameras in them - WOW, new project alert!!! I would have bought one already if I'd known. I really think this is the best way to go. OK it's clearly not great from the slugs point of view to be eaten by a hedgehog but...

I'd seen the copper bands and you can even buy adhesive copper tape. I think if I had one or two special things I'd go down this route but otherwise the garden might end up looking like some sort of mad scientists lab and given the amount of sprays the farmers use around here, releasing them into a neighbouring field would just make for a different sort of genocide ;-)

Barry, if you do the camera-in-a-box thing, we need to see those photos! I love hedgehogs and will never have a hope of one. :(

Can't quite manage that yet Mrs Lee but I am very tempted but second best if you see in #1 I also have slow worms and last night I was cleaning up outside and discovered where one hid during the day and got a picture which if only work will go away for a bit I'll upload somewhere and post.

Warning if you don't like snakes you may find the following picture a bit ick - but it's only a worm not a snake and completely harmless unless you're a slug....

*evil cackle*

You taunt me! I ask for an adorable hedgehog and you give me a snake-like creature! Pure evil.

Copper strips/short lengths of pipe really do work, but they're a pricey solution and don't look pretty, so save 'em for your young/precious plants!

I quite like the slow worm, he looks like a nice little chap.

Ack! I'm terrified of snakes!
*shivers again, gives ups and finally red-x-es the thread*

slow worms may not be snakes, (other than they closely resemble them) but they aren't 'worms' either, they are legless lizards.

I think we have those in our yard as well, but I'm not sure if it's the exact same critter. We like each other best when we don't see one another. I have lizards galore, but I don't think they eat snails or slugs, do they?

Some info and pictures of slow worms here. Apparently they do eat slugs, and can even extract small snails from their shells, it says here.