People say that slug tastes bitter due to that, many animals don’t eat them. However, that is not correct because slugs have many predators. There are garden birds known to feed on slug such as blackbirds.
Blackbirds belong to a family known as thrushes. Thrushes are songbirds that originate from Eurasia. Thrushes have 13 subspecies of blackbirds.
Blackbirds mainly feed on the small grey slugs since bigger ones are said to taste bad and may be poisonous. You can find them in both rural and urban areas.
How to Attract Blackbirds to Your Garden
Blackbirds are easy to attract since they are omnivorous. They eat plants and animals and are generally attracted to a farm that they will feel safe and where they get food, water and shelter. Here is how to attract blackbirds to your garden.
1. Plant a garden that can attract blackbirds
Blackbirds are known to like fruits such as raspberries, strawberries and blackberries. They also get excited by vegetable plants such as melons, peas, corn and sunflower. If you plant a garden that produces such plants throughout the year, then blackbirds will be attracted to your farm.
2. Provide clean water
When attracting birds to your garden, it’s essential to have fresh water points within the garden. Ensure watering holes have enough depth for the birds to bath and play. Since blackbirds fear water, ensure the water holes are shallow for the birds to walk through comfortably.
3. Create a desirable habitat
Everyone likes security and proper shelter. You can create sheltering trees, grass and shrubs that can provide a habitat for the blackbirds. Birds also like being in a high vantage point to monitor predators much easily.
4. Avoid hunting
You should make sure your garden is free of humans hunting for birds. Hunting will disrupt their nests. Animals like cats and dogs should also stay away since they can feed and disturb the habitat of the birds.
5. Create a habitat for blackbird prey
Blackbirds feed on mice, insects, lizards and slug. You should make sure the garden is full of slugs, and other animal preys so that they can attract blackbirds. Since they also feed on earthworms, they will quickly find a slug and feed on it.
If you provide the above conditions, your garden will be abundant with blackbirds that will feed on the slugs, thus reducing their volume significantly.
What to do When Slug Attacks
If you have an organic garden, then you must have experienced slug attacks during certain times of the year. Many gardeners resort to more comfortable ways of eliminating slug which don’t work for the long term, and sometimes they end up wasting a lot of time trying to kill slugs. Slugs eat a lot of plants does spoiling them and reducing your output.
When slug starts to show up on your farm, you are required to find means of doing away with them. The best and long-term measure is by attracting blackbirds and beetles to your farm. To make it easy for the blackbirds to find the slugs, you have to find slug traps.
You can create a trap laced with beer since the smell of beer attracts slug. Find containers and put beer in them. Place them in distinct locations within your garden. The beer will attract the slug which will come climb up the container and fall inside.
You can also eat grapefruits and place their skins upside-down along the borders of the garden. If you check daily, you will realise that slug is attracted to them. You can also use slug resistant hostas. Slugs like eating hostas thus can get excited by them.
Once blackbirds know your farm has enough slugs, they will start sticking around and might build a habitat around it. You are required to find ways of keeping them and ensure all conditions for their survival are achieved.
Bottomline
You should know that slugs also lay eggs and some lay up to 800 eggs in a year. The slugs can hide the eggs, making it challenging to find them. You should find mechanisms such as slug pellets to do away with slug eggs to ensure that your garden is safe. Afford damage to your farm early.