Skip to content Products search. More About Blog Contact us. What are slug pellets? How do slug pellets work? Methiocarb Methiocarb has been banned in many countries. Metaldehyde The more commonly used poisonous substance in slug pellets is metaldehyde. Why are slug pellets dangerous? Who is affected by slug pellets? Pets Slug pellets can appear striking to common pets such as dogs and cats.
Wildlife Despite being a threat to wildlife, slug pellets are still a popular method of gardening pest control. Children The blue colour of slug pellets is used to make them unappealing to birds and other wildlife.
Are slug pellets worth it? Safer Alternatives…. Watch the video below to find out more:. Related posts 13th July. Share this page Twitter Facebook Pinterest. Author: Monalisa. In order to give you a better service, Envii uses cookies. If you continue, we assume that you consent to receive tracking and third-party cookies. I Agree Read More. Using cheap or leftover materials, you can also make plant protection hats and garden cloches that can protect young plants. You can find more information here: Home-made slug defense.
Slug collars can also be made at home. To solve the problem in the long term, it is essential to help natural enemies of slugs to settle in your garden. You have definitely changed my perspective on my use of pellets! I am a new gardener who lives on the banks of a huge river, and I have taken to using a spray bottle with ammonia and water to kill them.
I have often wondered if they can feel, because this looks like a terrible way to die. Going out tomorrow to buy copper mesh to try instead. Additionally, upside down Slurpee cup lids and many kinds of fast food clear plastic cups work great recycled as garden cloches.
Another great idea, thank you. I have a Composting Bin which contains compost and many slugs and worms. I wanted to know whether the worms would be affected by the use of Slug pellets. This article has clearly demonstrated that the worms will be affected and the use of natural slug removers is the preferred method.
Hi there, your list of slug predators did not contain the most prevalent predator in city areas — RATS! We dealt with the rats and now the slugs are back! Amazon Affiliate Link. Author Recent Posts. Alexander Boeckmann. Gardening in harmony with nature. Latest posts by Alexander Boeckmann see all. Alexander Boeckmann Gardening in harmony with nature.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Snail and Slug Fence Field Test. Think Twice Before Keeping Them. It is therefore no wonder that so many different ways to attempt to control them have evolved over the years. Fifty years ago most gardeners kept a drum of table salt at the ready to pour on to the offending creatures as they appeared.
Salt was sprinkled around newly planted seedlings. Of course it dissolved instantly causing potential harm to soil and other wildlife.
If you live near the coast you may well use seaweed around the garden which many claim is an effective barrier. Wood ash may be deterrent for a while. Some slugs seem to be deterred by coarse grit spread around plants. Other slugs and snails cross intrepidly. Of course the ideal method of natural slug and snail control is to encourage enough natural predators to inhabit your garden: frogs, birds, hedgehogs and the like.
This can only be successful if your other slug control methods are harmless to them. Join my Gardening for Wildlife course for more on this. So here's my tried and tested top 10 ways to naturally control slugs and snails:. Coffee grounds spread around plants you want to protect do deter slugs and snails. Some swear by this method and coffee grounds are not a resource we are short of considering the number of coffee shops that have sprung up everywhere in the past quarter of a century.
No good for those of you using pods in your espresso machines; but ideal for those still using cafeterias. Slugs love beer, apparently. A container such as a margarine tub or large yogurt pot sunk into the ground so the rim is at or just above soil level, filled with beer acts as a slug trap.
The slugs are attracted, fall in and drown; a great way to go. Some formulations include carbaryl to increase the range of pests that are controlled. Unfortunately this also kills beneficial insects like ground beetles that eat small slugs and eggs. It is best to avoid such products.
In an effort to make metaldehyde safer, a chemical called bitrex is usually added to the product. According to the Guinness World Records, this is the bitterest substance know. It makes the pellets very bitter and animals tend no to eat them. Bitrex is also added to many household cleaners to prevent accidental ingestion by children. Provided the product includes bitrex it should be safe for animals.
In an effort to produce a safer slug bait companies started formulating iron phosphate into pellets that also contained a grain flour that attracted the slugs. Since iron and phosphate are natural chemicals found in the environment, organic farming regulators approved the product for use. Iron phosphate is more effective than metaldehyde at lower temperatures, but is easily washed away with rain or irrigation.
This bait does not paralyze the slug, so they crawl away to a hiding place and take several days to die. Because gardeners never see dead slugs it is hard to know if the product is working. In an effort to make iron phosphate a more effective molluscicide, a chelated form of the product was created. The chelating chemical is usually EDTA. Iron phosphate is quite safe for the environment, but EDTA has some issues.
Most websites still claim that iron phosphate is perfectly safe since it is natural and organic, but they ignore the EDTA component which is common in many slug baits these days.
EDTA Iron phosphate has harmed dogs that ate the bait ref 2. The answer to this depends on the environmental conditions at the time of application, the species of slug and the exact formulation of the product.
In general it seems that iron phosphate is less effective than Metaldehyde, which less effective than chelated iron phosphate ref 1, 3, 5. But either form of iron phosphate is more effective at low temperatures and in high humidity. Unlike metaldehyde, iron phosphate can be safely used around vegetable crops. The reported effectiveness depends on how you interpret the results.
For example, ref 5, compared an application rate of 1. Metaldehyde killed more slugs, but the amount of chemical applied was also higher. Do you compare the weight of product added, or the amount of active ingredient used? Any claims that one product is better than the other needs to be closely examined.
Reference 5 looked at three different species, and found that one was unaffected by iron phosphate, but was killed by metaldehyde. Although cost for the home gardener is not going to be a significant factor, metaldehyde is the cheapest option.
Iron phosphate without EDTA would be the safer product to use, but it is also the least effective one. Metaldehyde that contains betrix is almost as safe and is more effective. Claims that iron phosphate EDTA products are natural and harmless to animals is clearly not true.
They may in fact cause more harm than metaldehyde that contains betrix. Neither metaldehyde nor iron phosphate affect earth worms. However, EDTA iron phosphate is toxic to them ref 4. The immediate reaction to this might that we should stop using EDTA and protect the earthworm which so many consider important for the garden.
That may be a valid point, but remember that the earthworm, at least in North America, is an invasive species that is starting to have detrimental effects on our native woodlands. From an environmental perspective it is hard to support any idea that saves non-native earthworms.
The link to your reference 4 is broken but I think this is the same paper? In this paper they used 5x the recommended dose before the lost in weight became apparent and no worms died even with high dose.
What do you think? Well I saw a video on a gardening programme about two brothers whose garden business sold nothing but hostas. Any gardener will tell you that slugs and snails absolutely LOVE hostas. It works as I tried it BUT if it rains you need to respray with garlic water.
Spraying weekly means boiling a garlic soup weekly. If you ar are an OAP, that might be an option. If I see one, I cut in half with my secateurs. This is the most honest way of killing slugs in my view. It really pullls them. As a preventive measure i scatter slug baits methaldehyde based ones, because ferric sulfate is nowhere as efficient close to the the hiding places of the slugs shady places in shrubs an borders. I started this four years ago. Since then my hostas have no slug damage.
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