Anyone notice a lack of snails?

If there is anyone in North Waikato, just south of the Bombays that has had a definite drop in their snail and slug population.. it's because they are all here at our place! [}][}][}]
A light drizzle started falling just on dark and I decided to go cut some asparagus before I went in after feeding the goats. Buggar the asparagus, there were snails everywhere!, platoons of the beggars slithering hither and thither. I found a large planter thing I used to have some cacti growing in, it was the closest thing I could grab. I got the thing half full before deciding I'd had enough, sore back, getting wet, getting late.... I'm on the bloody warpath now! Attack will be ongoing. Not only that but the seedlings we got on the weekend were being annoyed as well, ruddy earwigs were eating the spring onions (or were they the onions? I dunno) They were latched around the spikes and presumably chewing happily.

Woodlice were out and about on the cabbage trees. No wonder they've been looking a bit sad... snails, woodlice and a few white tail spiders! The cabbage trees are not very big and I noticed the amount of snail pooh at the join of the leaves and trunk so yesterday I gave them a good blast with the jet nozzle on the hose. That seemed to flush out, what I thought, were oodles of snails but nothing compared to what I found out and about tonight! Any seedlings put in the ground at the moment won't amount to anything more than snail and slug food.

I vaguely remember a story on the radio on Sunday mornings that involved someone trying to evict snails.... or was it slugs... or both? from their garden. They tried water but the beasties thought it was a nice bath... everything the gardener tried seemed to add to the enjoyment of the slimy pests..... I can totally relate to this gardeners frustration now.... Slug and snail bait is out but I'd need boxes of the stuff to get rid of even half of them. .........[:0] HEDGEHOGS!!!!! I need Hedgehogs!!! Oh I know some people don't like them but right now, a hedgehog chowing down on a snail would be a welcome sight. The chooks are safe in their run. Bring on the prickly foe of the slugs and snails!!!!

Yakut

When we took out the base of the old glasshouse before putting in new raised garden and found a few hundred snails that had set up home under it. A few generations with great great grandbaby snail eggs as well, the chickens had a ball decimating the snail population under there. I know that there are more snail homes out there, just have to find them!

Just to add to your woes, apparently snails have a strong homing instinct. So even throwing them over your neighbour's fence won't get rid of them!

I was talking to someone the other day who goes out on damp evenings and collects a bucket of snails then the next day delivers them to the bird rescue people. Apparently they are always looking for snails from spray-free gardens. They make yummy smoothies for sick birds. [xx(]

chooks .. let the girls go to it!..i found about 20 blimin sails on one plant on the weekend..my old shaver thought she had died and gone to heaven.. the others, not so much.. in fact they looked like i had tried to poison them.. stupid PB chickens

Oh Dear Yakut - I'm just on the north side of the Bombays, and can agree with you about the local snail population - they have really exploded this year, but thankfully we haven't seen any of the white tailed spiders.

Last year it was crickets and green shield bugs...

That's interesting - snail population explosion down here too. Went out the other night when it was drizzling and there were 38 (yes I counted) of them 'hooning' down the path making for the strawberry plants. Next morning one of them had taken refuge in the toe of my shoe (revenge?) which felt delightful when I put it on. I can't use pellets/poison either so all ideas for a gentle population reduction other than messy mass murder gratefully accepted.

Like Yakut said, get some Hedgehogs. They are delightful creatures. Where we lived previously there was one that used to visit quite often of an evening for a cuddle and a feed of jellymeat. The children where most taken with this.

I took a baked bean can full of snails into the chooks and they just stood and looked at them. Slugger was willing but her twisted beak was a handicap and the snails were hot footing it in every direction. Korowai and Hen just didn't seem to be able to see them. I don't think the snails moved fast enough to catch their eye.
Korowai seems to be favouring Slugger at the moment. He found a spider the other day and was picking it up and dropping it and making odd wee noises trying to get Slugger to come and get it. She ignores him mostly, whatever he finds is usually too small for her to pick up. Hen didn't come running so he must have been talking to Slugger and Slugger alone.

Dear old Sluggs, she must be coming up for 9 and since I've been giving them all dog roll, not only has the egg production increased with the other elderly lot but Slugger has been producing an egg every second or third day.
Slugger gets pellets, some calf meal, grit and dog roll cut up into small bits. I add a bit of water to make it into a mash of sorts and served in a stainless steel dog bowl. This way, she can eat without her food going everywhere. Every morning she flaps up onto the handrail at the front door, then flaps up onto the post that has the bell on it. When she jumps off the post, the bell rings and sets the dogs barking thinking there is someone at the door. She's a smart chicken, tenacious and LOVES to help me garden. She knows she has to be right on top of the digging to catch worms before they vanish back into the soil. She misses quite a few because it takes her several attempts to get them. It makes gardening a whole lot more time consuming. I have to constantly move her out of the way with each fork full of earth dug over. Drives me nuts but I love my Slugger chicken.

Yakut

ahh bless old slugger.. my shaver..3 years and called grill.. shes my garden help.. she too has a crossed beak, but she manages to beat the living daylights out of the snails and gobble them up..oh and what she does to a weta! she has a home for life for that alone..

the GLW and BPR.. wont eat anything that hasnt come out of a packet.. fussy ponces..

but i can appreciate the snail prob on a drizzly night.. nothing like walking down the garden path in the dark.. crunch crunch crunch..iiikkk

Set a few saucers of beer in the ground, just level with surface, cover them if poss to keep rain out. Plant saucer balanced on little stones ?

Go out each morning to collect the bodies, still edible by chooks []

If you feel the need to collect the live ones, [xx(] put them in a plastic bag, freeze and dispose.

When you are well practiced, come on round and have a go here. []

I have a daughter who never finishes her beer, so the garden was festooned with stubbies lying on their side to catch the slugs.
Yucky slimy goo they turned into.[:0]

Yakut;393971 wrote: If there is anyone in North Waikato, just south of the Bombays that has had a definite drop in their snail and slug population..

I was thinking no flaming way has there been a drop in these crawlies.......

Yakut;393971 wrote: it's because they are all here at our place! [}][}][}]

and then I read this bit

I am seriously thinking about getting some ducks! I have my feed stored outside in a race in those blue 200L drums with a fit on lid, and when I go out there after dark the bins and shed wall are COVERED with the slimy sods. The smaller slugs even squeeze their way under the rim of the lid and into the feed...whereupon they dessicate and die [xx(]

igor;394027 wrote: Like Yakut said, get some Hedgehogs. They are delightful creatures.

Until they crawl under a broody and grab a chick by the foot, then curl up in a ball and eat it from the toes up while it scrams in agony and mum is defenceless against the hogs spines. Delightful is not a word I use to describe the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.!

One year we had a plague of snails. Each night we'd go into the garden and pick hundreds up without having to take a step. The walls of the house were speckled with them, and they came in the windows and left trails across the carpet overnight.[}]