Newly sowed carrots attracting many slugs and snails

I have sowed some autumn king carrots in rows in my raised bed in the hope of having a late harvest (advised by Monty Don) however, by going out at night I collected an unusually large amount of snails and small slugs on the area where they were sown. It looked to me they were very much attracted by the small shoots coming through and had successfully nibbled every top off  This has happened in the past when I had 0% success with carrots.

I am wondering if anyone knows why they go for carrots so much and what to do about it. Have tried garlic, organic pellets but it doesn't work. The only thing I can think of is going out and getting them at night but I bet as soon as I have cleared them and gone inside another lot will come along. It's so depressing 

Newly-emerged carrots are indeed very sought after by slugs and snails, and I suspect that many apparent "no-shows" are really the result of the seedlings being eaten before they're big enough for humans to see!

I know you try to be as wildlife-friendly as possible, but you might find it acceptable to sow your carrots under an enviromesh cage, put non-organic pellets down inside the cage so other wildlife can't access them, and organic ones scattered outside.

Works for me - sometimes you just have to re-think and scale up your efforts when faced with larger than normal problems, and this year slugs and snails are definitely one of them!

I had a planted with lots of newly sprouting carrot seeds, got up one morning to find that there was one of those horrible little grey slugs in it - quite a few of the seedlings had gone    Move the planted and the remainder to the picnic table in the back garden - hopefully better protected!

When planted out some Kale plants, I found 3 large snails in the seed tray (plants were in individual pots in a seed tray), chucked them down to a chicken who tucked in 

H

I must admit, the very small slugs get a quick death being trodden on but anything bigger I can't. The mesh sounds a good idea. Where can I get this from for a good price ? 

I had treading on snails!  I got home at 10pm one evening this week and I trod on 4 snails getting from my car to the house - YUCK!! *insert puky smilie*

Hannah

Am definitely going to get some alkathene piping and make large frames to be covered with Enviromesh for next year. It will keep my cats away from the blue pellets and protect the sowings and plantings from slugs, snails and the wind. I plan to have them in sections so I can use them singly wherever, or together as a big brassica cage later on.