Need simple slug trap design

[alldigging]

I've got 2 £shop ones with little lids.

Need to make something similar from household objects so I can use some of the mega container full of beery-yeast I've got our allotment site from a brewery.

It works for drowning the blighters - but best not to dilute with rain so things need a lid.

[binley100]

Cut the base off a pop bottle and crellate the edges. Do the same with the top bit of the bottle and fit one inside the other ........bend one of the edges down into the base to form a getout ramp for beetles....

[binley100]

a bit like this.......
Recycled Water Bottle Slug Trap.

[Leeds_lad]

a bit like this.......
Recycled Water Bottle Slug Trap.

Do these work? I reckon they look a bit shallow to be truly effective. any decent size slug/snail would just crawl out of it and there doesn't seem to be enough liquid to drown anything....

[veggiechicken]

a bit like this.......
Recycled Water Bottle Slug Trap.

I really like that Instructables website, Bins. Hours of happy browsing!! Thanks

[hamamelis]

I've been making something similar with small drink bottles, square ones like some juice bottles work best:
first carefully, with a craft knife, cut the top of the bottle off just below where it starts to taper in to the lid, (there's a little ridge in the bottles I normally use, which gives you a really good marker) then about 2cm or so below the cut, cut out |_| shaped bits in the sides, leaving a good depth below so you can get a decent beer depth. Then you put the top, with lid, back on.

Instead of completely removing the cut out bits like in that picture, I just cut the three sides and leave the top edge, then bend it out like a little window, as slugs and snails tend to climb up from the floor, not down from the top and the windows are fairly effective at stopping rain from getting in and diluting the beer.

I tend to make two smallish windows, just big enough for a snail (4 on bigger bottles), on opposite sides. There's not much point in making a window a lot larger than the biggest snail you expect to catch.

You can make them quite deep with even a small bottle, and mine have had a lot of dead slugs in this year (I don't have many snails, I think the slowworms get 'em).

I can try and take photos of one if it'd help?

[redser]

I've kind of made peace with my slugs. They'd drive you mad otherwise. I find if I leave a little heaps of rubbish like old lettuce leaves in the paths and cover them with bits of wood they head on down. Then I pick them up later. A sort of last supper deal. Poor things. They must be good for something.

[taff]

my father has been putting containers into the soil then poking 4 sticks in around the edges and then placing a flat stone/bit of slate on top.

[alldigging]

The 4 sticks method is probably least cutting

I've done one with a pop bottle top with a doorway in over half a plastic smaller bottle.
Will see how that does overnight.

Will try the crenelated one too I hunk tomorrow

[roitelet]

When I was in the UK I used 1 pint plastic milk containers. Take the top off (no cutting) place it on its side, handle uppermost, and enough beer to come up to the rim of the opening. Make a small depression in the soil so that the opening is level with it and wait for the slugs!

Sadly we can't get the containers here.

[Glutton4...]

Do you mean these, Roitelet? I'll happily save you some and post them.

[Ananke]

I can't vouch for this as I haven't tried it yet but if you google "cucumber aluminium slugs" there is a lot of information about putting a slice of cucumber into a small aluminium pie dish (i'm thinking Mr Kipling size would do), apparently something in the cucumber reacts with the aluminium and gives off a smell undetected by humans but rancid to slugs and they won't come near it.

I'm gonna give it a try, if it doesn't work then i've had a good excuse to munch through some bakewell tarts

[alldigging]

The eating of cakes is to be encouraged but I have a few pints of yeasty-beer to use in traps!
Must check in a bit how well last nights worked!

[roitelet]

Do you mean these, Roitelet? I'll happily save you some and post them.

There the things!!!!

Thanks for the offer Glutton but it will cost a fortune. I will get my daughter to save me some and collect them next time I am in the UK.