Birds especially love dead hedges, as they will find food and safe shelter inside.
For this purpose, branches, and twigs are piled up to form a kind of hedgerow.
This is held in shape by wooden posts – similar to a laid hedge.
Video: Ducks eating slugs
Use LEDs
Most nocturnal insects are very sensitive to artificial light sources.
Mainly short-wave blue light attracts them magically, and standard lamps are thus often fatal for all kinds of moths and flies.
Therefore, it is beneficial to use only warm-white LED bulbs (1000–3000 Kelvin), as they emit no UV light and only a few blue parts of the light spectrum.
Please consider using warm-white LEDs.
However, it would be better to abstain from nightly lighting in the garden.
Use motion detectors and install lights close to the ground, so they only light the spot you need them to.
Try to position and adjust light sources in a way that they cannot trap animals.
Many animals require dead plant remains to survive the winter.
Tidy up Less Often
Numerous insects rely on dead plant remains to overwinter in or below them.
Therefore, it is particularly important not to clear garden beds in the fall.
As much dead plant material as possible should be left during the winter.
You will do nature a great favor if you relax and leave dead plant remains until spring.
Dead plant stems and flowers especially are vital; for example, for solitary bees.
You can clean the beds in spring when life starts to flourish again.
This practice may not be pleasing to the eye, but wildlife will benefit enormously.
Video: Opossum eating a slug
Leave Deadwood
Each dead tree trunk can become a species-rich habitat.
It is useful, therefore, to offer coarse woody debris in your garden.
Even better is to provide a variety of different tree species in hidden spots all over the garden.
Deadwood is a source of life.
With little effort, this creates many small habitats that are vital to many insects (for example, beetles and solitary bees).
For this reason, in many gardens, dead trees are used to build deadwood sculptures.
The bigger the pieces of wood and the more tree species you can offer, the better.
7 thoughts on “Predators of Slugs | Identify and Attract Natural Enemies of Slugs and Snails to Your Garden”
This was very thorough and interesting information. I was curious about slug predators. Years ago I had a great abundance of slugs in my shrub beds. It seemed as if they had no predators. Now I rarely have slugs. I feed the birds, so they are constant visitors. I have a small section of my backyard, a former vegetable garden, that had reverted to nature. I was going to have it removed, but now find, after reading this, why I should and will save it and add fallen branches, etc. to it to make it home to more creatures. If I lived in the country, I could follow more of the suggestions to naturalize, but my neighborhood is not a naturalists haven. We have rules about cutting the lawn, etc. I was inspecting my nature spot today and discovered that raspberry plants had moved in. The birds will like that. Thank you for all of the information. So glad I stumbled on it!
You don’t know what slugs are until you try to grow mushrooms. MY GOD they invade my mushrooms. There are lots of toads and garter snakes around here, but one thinb about snakes; they don’t eat much. One good fat slug is probably anywhere from a week to a month’s meal for a garter snake of modest size.
My green bean seedlings have been decimated by small grey slugs. I have had to replant. I’ve tried beer traps and picking them off. I have all the garden elements;, wild area, pond, leaf residue. I have lots of wildife, including a possum family. I ordered sluggo but would like to avoid using it. I also ordered copper tape, but realize that will only work for pots. Your description of snail death definitely gives me reason to avoid using sluggo.
I count about 3 or 4 fire hazards being tipped as animal habitats here. Don’t leave your lawn for 12 months or it will be as high as your neck, and don’t pile dry sticks in a random corner of your yard. That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
This was very thorough and interesting information. I was curious about slug predators. Years ago I had a great abundance of slugs in my shrub beds. It seemed as if they had no predators. Now I rarely have slugs. I feed the
birds, so they are constant visitors. I have a small section of my backyard, a former vegetable garden, that had
reverted to nature. I was going to have it removed, but now find, after reading this, why I should and will save it
and add fallen branches, etc. to it to make it home to more creatures. If I lived in the country, I could follow more of the suggestions to naturalize, but my neighborhood is not a naturalists haven. We have rules about cutting the lawn, etc. I was inspecting my nature spot today and discovered that raspberry plants had moved in. The birds will like that. Thank you for all of the information. So glad I stumbled on it!
Thank you for the very helpful extensive information.
You don’t know what slugs are until you try to grow mushrooms. MY GOD they invade my mushrooms. There are lots of toads and garter snakes around here, but one thinb about snakes; they don’t eat much. One good fat slug is probably anywhere from a week to a month’s meal for a garter snake of modest size.
My green bean seedlings have been decimated by small grey slugs. I have had to replant. I’ve tried beer traps and picking them off. I have all the garden elements;, wild area, pond, leaf residue. I have lots of wildife, including a possum family. I ordered sluggo but would like to avoid using it. I also ordered copper tape, but realize that will only work for pots. Your description of snail death definitely gives me reason to avoid using sluggo.
Thanks very much for your detailed and informative article. Here in the UK not all the predators are found but I learnt a lot from you. Thanks!
I count about 3 or 4 fire hazards being tipped as animal habitats here.
Don’t leave your lawn for 12 months or it will be as high as your neck, and don’t pile dry sticks in a random corner of your yard. That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
Dear friend,
thank you for your comment.
Could you maybe explain why piling up dry sticks is a bad idea?
Thank you so much,
Alex