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A few replies..notes...question?
You can get liquid copper sulfate at Garden Exchange in Hilo. The powdered is hard to dissolve. We put it in a sprayer, dilute it, making sure it is still very blue and put a coating around the base of the catchment, pillars, etc. NOTE, this is not a federally approved use for copper sulfate (when I suggested using it, I was forgetting we found this out recently) so if you ask for copper sulfate for the purpose of repelling slugs they will not sell it to you. If the caffeine did work, much better.
Just finishing up the last cup of coffee here, so dumped a few TBS. on one and it went right through it unscathed, and I drink strong coffee. (I believe when Rob was working on the caffeine for coqui, they were looking at industrial strength stuff that you had to wear protective clothing to spray and would actually be quite dangerous if it got on your skin.) So I tried the grounds next. When not given a choice, it went over them again unscathed, though I very unscientifically did not see what happened to it later. Saw where it went so will go check in a bit. The interesting thing is that when given a choice, it would avoid the grounds, maybe because they tend to like smooth surfaces as well as trying to avoid the caffeine, so that looks very hopeful for repelling. Instead of putting grounds in the compost, they will go around the catchment and my lettuce bed table. Thanks Carey. Epsom salts sound like a good idea too, if in an area that did not get wet.
Yeah, it is good to try to keep populations of slugs down around your home, but does that get old after a while. My husband and I spent many a romantic evening out in the moonlight, exterminating the slugs with spoons, and yogurt containers filled with salt water or alcohol and writhing slugs. My neighbor throws handfuls of lime on them. They tend, at least where we are, to come out full on about 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. When they first arrived, we did another unscientific experiment by trapping one in a bottle with Sluggo bait. It stayed in there for days without touching it, then finally ate some and died. So it seemed like it was a food of last resort. Unlike others of the slug/snail type, I think they may prefer algae and mold to plants.
Reducing rat population is always a fine idea too. Still with all the trapping, mega rats occasionally chew through screens and wood walls to get into the house. Cats are a big help.
I have been using vinegar water to clean vegetables too, as suggested in a post. Seems like if it is supposed to kill bacteria, it should do something to a parasite.
When I did a lot of research into the illness a few years ago, nothing I could get my hands on said exactly how long the nematode can live outside of the slug. Just not very long. Maybe there is new info now.
Question to Hotzcatz? How did you get your chickens to eat a semi-slug? Ketchup? We have tried, and the chicken just gets a disgusted look on its face, spits the thing out and rubs its beak on the ground to remove the slime. I suspect that ours eat the eggs or really small ones, but we just cannot get them to eat slimy mature ones.
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Wouldn't the large amount of rain just wash away the liquid copper sulfate? Same for the coffee grounds?
I need to put this around my house and catchment tank, but I'm afraid the large amounts of rain will just wash it all away.
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Very good question nine, I have wondered the very same thing, w on't any and all applications just wash away.
Searched several times for the mosquito thread and couldn't find it so here is an interesting article on the subject regarding recent research.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090102/ap_o...squitoes_3
mella l
mella l
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It might work for us, since I would spray it on the bottom of our planting containers which are sitting for the most part under a canopy.
Carrie Rojo
"Every area of trouble gives out a ray of hope; and the one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable."
-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Carrie Rojo
"Even the smallest person can change the course of the future..." Galadriel LOTR
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So do the chickens have some kind of antibody agaist this awful disease that the slugs carry around? If so, it is another great reason to have chickens! [:0]
quote:
Originally posted by Hotzcatz
I haven't tried the epsom salts for anything much more than making tomatoes happier but chickens are real good at eating slugs. We used to have a lot of slugs and those giant African land snails, but between the chickens eating the slugs and me flying all the GALS I find into the gulch (they probably survive the flight but have difficulty surviving the landing) we have a lot less of each of those around here now.
There are also a lot of tropical skin rashes that show up from folks not having chlorinated water. Using micro bacterial soap will keep a lot of the skin rashes away but not all of them since some of them are fungal instead of bacterial. There used to be a sulfur soap which could be used, but I'm not even sure if Long's carries that anymore. They used to have a good fungal creme, too, but haven't seen that in awhile, either.
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
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Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany
Devany Vickery-Davidson
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...do the chickens have some kind of antibody agaist this awful disease that the slugs carry around?
It might actually be diseases, plural, for which the slugs & snails are potentially vectors of transmission to humans ...and a darn good question, Devany. My offhand guess is the birds are too dissimilar from mammals for the helminths to be successful in them or for the bacteria to infect 'em, since there does not appear to be a big pathology problem for domestic poultry stemming from rat lungworm and/or leptospirosis*, but this is just a guess. Dinosaurs never really died out, they just grew feathers and flew away; because birds developed from reptiles on a way different branch of the evolutionary tree than did mammals, with parasites generally evolving along with their hosts, these invertebrate-mammal parasites may not be physiologically able to jump across the huge phylogenetic gap to birds (unlike the flu virus). I'll see if I can find anything on that.
Folks with long experience raising chickens (and ducks, peafowl, Guinea fowl, etc) under various conditions in Puna, what have you observed in the way of morbidity and mortality amongst birds feeding on slugs and snails?
mella 1, here is a link for you to the Mosquito Control & Mosquito-borne Disease thread: http://www.punaweb.org/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4412 -encouraging news, that tidbit you shared!
Edited to include this caveat: *While unconvinced by the evidence I've seen so far that lepto is passed by the snails and their kin, as per the discussion over in the mongoose thread, I'd agree it is better to assume a potential problem and be wrong than ignore a potential problem and be wrong. So, until established otherwise, there remains question about a snail/slug-lepto connection. In practical effect this changes little to nothing in how we need to behave with regard to them because of the definite presence of infective rat lungworm larvae: tools, gloves, and washing after contact.
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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
Pres. John Adams, Scholar and Statesman
"There's a scientific reason to be concerned and there's a scientific reason to push for action. But there's no scientific reason to despair."
NASA climate analyst Gavin Schmidt
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Astonishing skill! This archer is a real-life Legolas and then some!
http://geekologie.com/2013/11/real-life-...rs-anc.php
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Good answer Steven! Thanks. It will be interesting to hear the feedback on the poultry farmers.
The movers are loading the truck right now... just three more days till we are there!
Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany
Devany Vickery-Davidson
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For a good snail/slug barrier that will last... use bare copper strips, mesh tubing or wire
(OK, this is not a CHEAP alternative, but if you are lucky like us & had rats chew your electrical wiring - this why NOT to use Romax here -- & have a whole house full of nibbled wire... it will give you lots of uses for leftover wiring) then you only have to strip it (we are still using the unsheathed grounds, so no big stripping yet..).... Some homes in our neighborhood had copper screens that would also make a good barrier
We have found that at least an inch or 2 of bands around the item you want slugless, and make sure they intersect at least once ... or the buggers will just follow the uncoppered path!
(most likely there is also a dilute copper sulfate drip occurring during voggy times, too!
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Cannot recall if it was at Lowes over on the Kona side or at Hilo's Home Depot, but I recently purchased a 20 foot long roll of copper flashing for around $35 or $40. I used part of the copper to write a message on for putting inside a heavy three inch diameter "time capsule" pipe, sealing the pipe with end caps, and placing inside a wall of our house (in construction). The copper is soft enough to write on with a ballpoint pen; it takes and holds the impress perfectly. Since this copper flashing is soft enough to cut with ordinary shears and comes in 20' long rolls (8", 10" and larger widths available) it seems like this might be useful for service as a relatively inexpensive and wide slug & snail barrier. That would be what, 80' of 2" wide copper strips from one roll if the narrowest roll was cut up?
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productList&N=4294961544&Ne=4294967294&Ntk=i_products&Ntt=copper+flashing
http://doitbest.com/Main.aspx?PageID=64&SKU=112135&utm_source=nextag&utm_medium=CSE&utm_term=112135&utm_content=6790&utm_campaign=DATAFEED
If effective as a slug and snail barrier then even if several rolls of copper flashing were required to seal all around the base of raised beds and such, seems like this would still be highly cost-effective versus uncertainty & worry, potential discomfort, and losses to illness and expenses for doctor visits, lab work, and medications contra parasites.
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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
Pres. John Adams, Scholar and Statesman
"There's a scientific reason to be concerned and there's a scientific reason to push for action. But there's no scientific reason to despair."
NASA climate analyst Gavin Schmidt
)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(
)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(
Astonishing skill! This archer is a real-life Legolas and then some!
http://geekologie.com/2013/11/real-life-...rs-anc.php
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thanks for this thread. before reading it, some green onions were planted. they're looking pretty nice. but, they'll be trashed being that i killed 27, yes 27 slugs of various colors and sizes hanging around the papaya trees a few minutes ago. the onions are right next to them. guess i could let them grow and wash them in the apple cider?
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order shall return."
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