Killer slugs

Some days ago I discovered some killer slugs (Spanish slugs) in my garden. So yesterday I tried to make two traps. One was an electric fence powered with 9 volt, the other trap was three small buckets containing beer.

I experimented with a slug to see if it would move over two wires with 9V across them; when the slug first made contact with the two wires a reaction could clearly be seen, but after a while it managed to get cross the wires. The voltage has to be higher to stop them. Another problem with the electric fence is that the slugs will have an easy time moving under it, since they are quite good at digging into the ground.

So there was only the beer trap left to try. The small buckets where dug into the ground, and some Heineken thinned with water was poured into the buckets. The next day they where full of killer slugs, see photo. I have read somewhere on the Internet that the beer traps attract killer slugs over a large distance, so you might just end up getting all the slugs in the neighbourhood into your garden. So it is probably a good idea not leave the beer traps out to long.