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Wales, United Kingdom
Documenting one couple's attempts to live a more self-sufficient life.

Saturday 28 July 2012

Beer traps for slugs: a test

After hunting down and evicting around two hundred slugs over the course of three evenings, I was starting to wonder if simply throwing them over the railway line wasn't enough. Are they just coming back? Maybe it's time to get tough.

I'm reluctant to waste good beer on slugs, but I've heard that it's the yeast they really like, not the beer as such. I kept the yeasty sludge from a batch of homebrew (kit beer), added sugar and water, and used that to bait a few jam jars, which I then buried in the soil yesterday evening.

This morning I went out eagerly to check my traps and... not a sausage! Nor a slug, which might look quite similar to a sausage, but should not be confused. I wasn't entirely surprised by the total failure, as I'd spotted this little fellow last night checking out one of the traps and deciding it wasn't worth the risk:


The slugs round here aren't as daft as they look.

3 comments:

  1. A sure-fire way of combating slugs is to get your 15-stone husband to tread on them as he makes his way to the downstairs loo, as mine did last night. Of course, you have to put up with a lot of shouting of the "EEEURGH, yuk, AARGH" sort, but if you'd seen the size of the slug you'd probably have though it worth it.

    I just wish I could find out how the little buggers are getting into my hall!

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  2. Very thin socks. I did very well not to laugh.

    ReplyDelete

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