Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Poultry and Pets => The Hen House => Topic started by: ceri green on October 07, 2008, 08:28
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yesterday i was digging over my veggie patch readying it for winter. the hens were all standing the other side of the fence watching me with longing and dribbling (they know that a garden fork means WORMS)....i wanted to let them through to scratch around themselves but didnt dare because this year i used slug pellets and didnt want to risk them picking up an undissolved one or anything!. next year i intend to NOT use sulg pellets ( i was was always uneasy about it anyway), but allow the chooks to be pest control operatives. My question is.. are the hens more likely to ignore the slugs and eat the veggies etc that i am trying to protect???
what do those of you who let their hens on the veggie patch do about slug and snail control?
here it seems to be the slug capital of the world! when i find slugs and snail on the plants i chuck them out into the field, but more and more appear in its place!
any suggestions please?
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A bucket of salty water and drop them straight in.
My ducks adored snails but were always none too willing with slugs.
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does that kill them then? and then what do i do with them? do chickens like pickled slug :lol: :lol: :lol:
thanks anyway.....but sounds a bit labour intensive lol... i was hoping for a solution that meant slugs never darkened my veg plot agin! :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Something that *does* keep slugs away from garden plants are strips of old carpet. True, it doesn't really look all that nice, but if the carpet is tacked or rolled with the upper side facing outwards along the garden bed, the slugs can't get into the bed, as they cannot crawl properly over the fibers.
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That's a really good question, Ceri, because we've found a hedgehog in our garden a coupla times and have numerous frogs or toads(can't tell which!)!!
I've been thinking that from now on absolutely no more blue pellets even though they're supposed to be ok(ish). Maybe we could all trial some nematodes next season??
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Maybe we could all trial some nematodes next season??
They are supposed to be really good, but are we all then depriving hedgehogs their dinner :?
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errrrr ? :?
(very quietly trying not to display too much ignorance)
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Ceri, try this; i think it explains it slightly better than I can;
http://www.greengardener.co.uk/slug.htm
Hadnt thought of poor little hedgehog being deprived of his slugs, Richy. Now I really don't know what to do. Oh well I'll just bear in mind Plato and that in knowing one realises how little they know. If you catch my drift...... :?
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thanks for that HC, looks good and some of the other products do too such as the copper tape for pots.
Have you ( or anyone else reading this) used it?
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got so carried away then that i forgot that part of my original question was..... will the chickens prfer the plants i'm trying to protect to the slugs and snails :lol: . are there any veg plants that they will NOT eat in the early stages?
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No, I personally haven't. I've thought about it though. Maybe we should ask John if he can arrange a special discount from one of the big gardening suppliers so that all of us can have a mass trial of nematodes next season?? Should we pose this question in the GYO forum??
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sounds a good idea :)
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got so carried away then that i forgot that part of my original question was..... will the chickens prfer the plants i'm trying to protect to the slugs and snails :lol: . are there any veg plants that they will NOT eat in the early stages?
Nope if they are like mine, they will ignore the snails completely eat the seedlings then scoff the slugs and make a dust bath in your nursery bed that you had the seedlings in :lol:
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lmao @ richy... they seem to love cucumber also...cannot believe my babies actually ate my cucumbers and just left me with the smallest hint that there had ever been a cucumber hanging on that stalk! it must have given them good exercise though as they were quite a way off the ground and nothing to stand on!!!!
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I used nemetodes and they did work although expensive and you have to make sure you replace them regulary as only last about 6 weeks. I forgot and they came back with a vengeance! :shock:
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lmao @ richy... they seem to love cucumber also...cannot believe my babies actually ate my cucumbers and just left me with the smallest hint that there had ever been a cucumber hanging on that stalk! it must have given them good exercise though as they were quite a way off the ground and nothing to stand on!!!!
:lol: mine stripped the blackberry bush the other day, anything below "jump" height has vanished :lol:
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I find that it's not so much what the chooks eat that's the problem it's the scratching! My cockerel even scratches cardboard to bits (ok it's been down a while and is damp too but you'd think they wouldn't scratch where there's no earth or green stuff.) ;)
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My ducks love slugs and snails and have almost completely stripped the garden of both. The problem is that if they are let in the veg patch they eat the tender stuff and trample the little stuff so they have to be kept out. Despite this they seem to have kept the population right down in the whole garden and I have had no slug damage this year (caterpiiars are another story :evil: ).
I am letting mine onto the veg patch over winter to forage out any last suvivors and their eggs in the soil and to concentrate their "fertilizer" where needed. Come spring they will be back to the rest of the garden and by then the grass will have grown back!
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I used these once but they are expensive and you do have to keep using them. Also the ones I had only worked on slugs not snails. I don't know if there are nematodes for snails.
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Actually Ceri I thought Llanboidy was probably the slug capital ....
I want Carlitos Crow's slugs that won't go over old carpet. I've found mine even go over bran and copper tape, although a friend of mine swears by it. I've used nematodes, but terrifically expensive for the size of my patch and then to repeat every six weeks, and if they worked, it wasn't noticeable. I find chickens do a lot of damage by scratching, but are very handy when it comes to pest control. My old hen, sadly deceased, was a terror for leatherjackets and used to help when I was digging by getting in the way of the fork. I ended up letting them into the veg patch during the 'winter' half of the year and excluding them (and slug pelleting) during the 'summer' half. Has anyone tried ducks? Do they eat all your veg as well?
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I use Nematodes every year in my garden at home ( which is very small ) kills the slugs but not the snails. Only takes one application per year as the Nems live until all the slugs are dead .
Snail are not affected by them but at least you have halved the problem and no fear of harming wildlife or the hens
Alan