Slugs

[jimmy2s83]

While searching for worms to start a small bin a ran across some slugs and gathered them to feed to my snake. While in there they began to eat some of the shredded paper I had put in there to keep the worms healthy. It seems the slugs are eating the paper much faster than the worms but the worms love the digested paper the slugs produce. When the slugs are done with the paper it looks the same just in little clumps. Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with Slugs in this nature. Oh I also put some small pieces of cardboard in there but they have not paid much attention to it just the paper.
BTW there are only 3 slugs and about 4 worms with the snake. Just enough for him to be able to find one when he gets hungry. He generally eats the worms but I did have 4 slugs and one day there were only 3 so he must have wanted something new that day.
Jimmy
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[tt]

slugs are good composters. i have had a few of them in my bins they love the waste and bin enviorment. Im suprized the snake would eat them . I used to have ducks and they just love them but they would get so slimy from eating them. Their bills would stick together.

[jimmy2s83]

Well,
I didn't think the snake would eat them either but when I looked it up it said they enjoy stalking them as prey. I guess it makes him feel like a hunter being that he is only about 15" long. I do notice the worms dissapear more often than the slugs though. Still 3 slugs in there and I started with 4 and the worm count is hard to establish being that they stay under most of time. The slugs do leave a lot of slime on the glass that I have to clean up quite often. If the snake refuses to eat them I most likely will place them in the bin and let them eat up. Oh yeah I noticed that the slugs started to attack the cardboard and their poop is the same color as the cardboard just different shape. They don't seem to change the color of the food they eat. Not wood products anyway.
BTW do the slugs eat most anything that a worm will?

[Jay Blair]

Jimmy,
While slugs are good decomposing agents in the confines of a compost bin environment, they can prove hazardous to many garden crops if they remain active or have left fertile eggs behind.

Just as slugs can damage lawns, they can also damage corn, potato, sugar beet, Brussels sprout, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower , carrots , kale , tomato, asparagus, lettuce, peppers, etc.

Slugs are most troublesome in the early wet season when the seedlings are just sprouting.

If you plan to use your compost for garden use or sale to gardeners it is not advisable to allow slug populations to exist in the moist optimum environment of your worm bin.

Even if you dry the castings sufficiently to eradicate mature slugs the moisture remaining to keep the castings viable could also hold the slug eggs in stasis until watering.

As slugs are hermaphrodites as earthworms, eradication of them can be difficult. Slugs pose one of the advantages to vermicomposting with Eisenia fetida , E. andrei and Lumbricus rubbellus earthworm species as they can tolerate a much wider environmental condition than slugs. Moisture adjustment and manual picking and sorting can remove slug risk from your compost product.

Leaving rove beetles in the vermi-compost is also an effective means of slug control in bins and no till garden environments.

I often specifically harvest rove beetles from my indoor breeder compost units to add to my thatch covered raised bed garden to control slug and aphid larvae. While earthworms exist well with the rove beetles, the beetles are a predator of the slugs and snails.

So if you do choose to raise slugs for snake food, I would suggest that you use an isolated bin with a salt border at the bin edge to prevent migrations.

[jimmy2s83]

Thanks for the heads up.
I just tossed a couple of them with the snake to see what would happen. I never placed any in the worm bin. Though I did recently notice a few tiny slugs with the snake. I am starting to wonder what I started. Fortunatley I can easily remove the slugs from the snake as I can empty the entire contents and start over very easily. I will be sure to keep an eye on them to see how the population continues. The snake is generally eating the worms and has been ignoring the slugs. I guess they didn't taste as good as the worms. LOL.
Thanks again.
Jimmy