I got up early to vaccuum and wash floors because Gamma and I had planned to go climbing or bouldering but then we postponed it by a week bc she had a lot of work today and as it turned out so did I, instead of climbing I went to the gym, then back at home I made some noodles out of which I made aglio e olio; the noodles were a bit too fine and clumped up somewhat but it tasted good. We had green salad made with the last lettuce from our raised beds and then while I was napping Alpha asked me if had gone to the store to get anti-vole screens yet and I was like, dang I forgot and got ready to jump in my Ford Tourneo Courier Ecoboost 1.0 and run to the store to order some when I realized I could order it online so I did that and about an hour later I got an email that it was ready to be picked up so I put the cookie dough I had been working on into the refrigerator to cool while I was gone (but not long enough, they came out flat), ran to the store, picked up the 10 meters of galvanized anti-vole screening which cost about a hundred bucks which seemed like a lot but OTOH that is what (at least it feels like it) I spend weekly on cat food and cat treats and TBH the screens cannot work any worse against voles than four certain cats* do and will probably be more effective. Now I’m watching the news on TV with Alpha (Alpha and I are watching the news, Alpha is not *on* the news) and after the news the choice is either stupid rerun of some stupid detective series (German-language TV sure has a lot of detective series, so many that they run out of actors so you see the same actors in several series, once as a detective, once as the killer, or the victim) or go to bed early and I think I’ll do the latter.
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*The one exception is Daisy and her mouse dispenser – she waits by a vole hill and snatches them when they stick their heads out to see if the coast is clear. I presume she eats them too – she was on my lap recently and her stomach was growling and eeping and erping like two Foley artists fighting it out.
Tag Archives: gardening
Beverage preference among the common garden slug (Arion distinctus)
A study by Mig Living
Abstract:
Darkness, moisture, sliminess, hunger, thirst: tasting, drinking, drowning. Death.
Brief explanation of the study:
Motivated by a desire to protect my vegetable garden from slugs without the use of toxic chemicals or spending an arm and a leg on tin slug fences of unknown effectiveness, I performed a study last Saturday night to see whether placing beer in containers in said vegetable garden would kill slugs and, if so, which shape/size of container was optimal. In order to test slug beverage preference, I employed several brands of beer and one non-beer beverage.
Containers used:
- Catfood cans (both the full-size cans and half-size cans with the same radius but only half as tall.
- Plastic flower-pot saucers about ten inches across and one inch deep.
Methodology:
All containers were buried so that the top edge was even with the top of the soil. A total of eight containers were used. Six catfood cans (containers #1-6) were placed in the lettuce patch. Two saucers (containers 7 & 8) were placed two or three meters away, between the red beets and the radishes.
The containers were filled to capacity with the beverages and left in the garden overnight.
Contents of the containers (1-6 are the catfood cans, 7&8 are the plastic saucers):
- Ottakringer Helles
- Schwechater
- Becks
- Stiegl
- Heineken
- Red Bull
- Red Bull/Heineken mixture
- Mixture of the other 4 beers
Expectations:
No slug preference for beer brand was expected. Some slug drownage was expected on the basis of previous reports. Random distribution of a few slugs per container was thought likely. No slugs were expected in the containers containing Red Bull, although ants were expected to construct a three foot-tall anthill overnight.
Results:
149 dead slugs were counted the next morning. Distribution between the containers was as follows:
- 7
- 36
- 11
- 7
- 2
- 2
- 42
- 42
Conclusions:
Container depth plays no role in slug-trapping. Container radius seems to be important. The two saucers, which had much greater circumfrence/surface area, caught more slugs than the cans.
The biggest surprise was slug beverage preference. As you can see from the graph, there is a clear preference among arion distinctus for Schwechater, and their least-favorite beer is Heineken, tied for last with Red Bull (although the theory has been put forward that more slugs may have drunk Red Bull, but then jumped back out of the can afterwards; a second experiment utilizing time-lapse photography is planned once funding becomes available).
Something that has not yet been conclusively interpreted in this connection is the fact that the two larger saucers each caught an equal number of slugs despite containing, on the one hand, a mixture of the most popular beers and on the other the two least-popular beverages. It is possible, although unlikely, since it was only 2 meters away, that a different slug population inhabits the beet patch. It is possible that container size is a more important factor than contents. It is possible that the Heineken in the Red Bull in the saucer made the slugs drowsier and unable to jump back out.
It is also questionable whether the 6 beverages used in this experiment were sufficient – a larger-scale study with more types of beer would be useful.
Further research is necessary before a final conclusion on the beverage preference of arion distinctus can be drawn.
Posted in Metamorphosism