"Mike" wrote in
:


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 ?

1) are you really sure you want to go on feeding the mice? They may be
cute now, but if you supply an unlimited quantity of high-fat nutritious
food, there are soon going to be an awful lot of them!

2) get some copper tape and attach it to the fence where the slugs need
to sit to get at the feeder.

This really does work, unlikely though it seems. I had the same problem
with slugs climbing into my rabbits' house and pinching their food.
Copper tape around the edge of the bowl stopped the problem completely
and immediately.

You may find your mice have a similar tendency to my rabbits and will
strip the copper off over time (the peeling action seemed like fun to
them!)

However, I found that the slugs 'learnt' their lesson, and did not return
even though the bunnies had peeled off most of the tape after a few
months.

Now, a year or so later, I am starting to find slugs in the bowl again
occasionally, and must get round to to applying another layer of copper
tape.

Actually this poses interesting questions about the intelligence of
slugs: I must say I had assumed that learning would be beyond them, but I
can't think of any other explanation, barring a freak series of
accidents, and your account suggests your slugs had 'learnt' the location
of your peanuts too.

There used to be about 6 that would turn up in the bowl each night (and
be flung away by me in fury in the morning): I originally assumed these
were random wanderers, but now I wonder if they were actually the same
slugs every night?

Victoria
--
gardening on a north-facing hill
in South-East Cornwall
--