Giant slug!

[Holly]

Ran out of snacks for Noodle today so we went on a field trip to the park and found the motherload of slugs and worms, now have enough slugs to get a good sized colony going!

Also found this guy, my husband wants to keep it as a pet. I named it tank because it's so big it looks like it has tank treads!

On my husband's hand because it's gross and I won't touch it!





Anyway, right now he's in the fridge with the rest of the food we found and some snails. My husband wants to set up a small Kritter Keeper with Tank and the snails. Would I have to keep the whole thing in the fridge?

[Laura]

Awww don't use him as food! That lil guy is probably very old, I read somewhere the bigger they are the older they are (can live up to 5/6yrs old)

[Holly]

He's way too big to use as food! My poor little Dekayi would probably get eaten by it!

I just don't know if I should keep it in the fridge or not, our new place doesn't get as hot as the old place did.

[ConcinusMan]

Pretty cool slug. Never thought about having one as a pet though. I imagine it would be hard to keep him cool in my house. I find slugs like that deep in the woods in western Washington and Oregon. Some of them have an orange tint to them. Good luck getting the slime off of your hand. Those big native slugs are bad news for garters or humans. The slime will cause major problems. Better off feeding garters with non-native common garden slugs.

That is no ordinary slug you have there. The slime will choke a garter. Those slugs, when stretched out and on the move, can reach lengths of 10 inches.

If you were to keep slugs and snails found in the woods, as pets, you would need a fridge to keep them at around 55 degrees F. Otherwise, they just go dormant or die. Do not underestimate their need for food. It will shock you. That guy probably eats the equivalent of an entire head of cabbage in just a couple of days.

[guidofatherof5]

Not sure the fridge is the place to keep it if you plan on keeping it as a pet. Cold temps will probably cause it to be more dormant. Room temp and high hunidity for that monster. Any left over veggies or veggy scraps will be like heaven for your Slugzilla.

[Holly]

We found him under a chunk of wood ringing a garden in the park, it was about 16C out today.

My husband had to SCRAPE the slime off his hand, he was disgusted!

We usually feed our veggie scraps to the feeder slugs, lettuce cores, strawberry tops, etc. We never have a shortage of compost material. What size container do you recommend?

[guidofatherof5]

We found him under a chunk of wood ringing a garden in the park, it was about 16C out today.

My husband had to SCRAPE the slime off his hand, he was disgusted!

We usually feed our veggie scraps to the feeder slugs, lettuce cores, strawberry tops, etc. We never have a shortage of compost material. What size container do you recommend?

I would think a large shoe box size would work.
They do put out a lot of waste so changing substrate is important.
I let my captured leopard slug go in my wood pile. Hoping to get some smaller versions for feeding purposes.

[Holly]

How many different kinds of slugs are there? We found a bunch of the usual brown ones but we also found a lot of paler ones.

[guidofatherof5]

How many different kinds of slugs are there? We found a bunch of the usual brown ones but we also found a lot of paler ones.

I don't know. My slug info. is limited.
Some of my radixes say "Yum" while others say "Yuck"
I have noticed that the ones that eat them do so very fast. This avoids a mouth full of slime.
My dekayis eat them slow and don't seem to mind the slime at all. But then again my dekayis eat everything slow

[ConcinusMan]

I usually find these and they are often the biggest ones I can find under flower pots and stuff in my yard:



But when I go out into the woods, the slugs there are monsters like the one you found, dark brown but with bright orange undersides and edges of the foot. Kinda like this one but darker above. They are really huge, like almost a foot long sometimes. The only time they are active and in the open is at night when it's wet and about 55 degrees. Never see them when it's warmer, even if it's wet outside. They can still be found hiding under logs and stuff. Hasn't been that long since I saw one. If I find another soon, I'll get pics.