"Mike" wrote in message
...
Hi
We have a peanut feeder which was hanging from, and resting
against, a full
height larchlap fence panel.

We got slugs climbing up the fence to get at the peanuts, so last
weekend I
put a block on the fence so the feeder free-hangs about 3/4" away
from it.
Got up this morning to find two slugs on it, one with it's back
half on the
fence, leaning across the gap, with its mouth parts grabbing a
peanut
through the wire of the feeder !

Much as I admire their tenacity and effort, what can I do to
discourage
them, without annoying the family of mice that live in the Ivy on
the next
fence panel, and run along the top of the wall so they can hop down
on to
the feeder ?

(I've put another freehanging peanut feeder up elsewhere so the
birds can
get a look in !)

I've always admired slugs' alpinist talents, though baffled by why
they climb up featureless twenty-foot walls with no food in sight.

Surely the mice will survive anyway? I imagine you've ruled out a
hanging-basket bracket on the fence and hanging the feeder with a bit
of nylon for their sake. If it's true that slugs won't crawl on
copper -- and I rather doubt the claim -- maybe you could build in a
copper something: perhaps hang the feeder from a bit of wire, or a
bracket made of copper pipe? This wouldn't worry the mice.

I love this problem: tell us more as it happens!

Mike.