What would happen if you sprinkled salt on a slug?

Daaanieeel

It kills them. Because slugs have so much water in them, the salt draws it out and the slug dies of dehydration within a minute or less. http://www.slugoff.co.uk/slug-facts/salt May 14 12, 6:17 PM

jabb5076

They bubble as they are dying. Slugs and snails are prevalent pests in the San Francisco Bay Area and can decimate a bed of freshly planted flowers in a couple of days. As disgusting as it sounds (now, as an adult) children have no compunction about sprinkling salt over the slugs and snails slimely inching along the sidewalks after the sprinklers have run, just to watch them bubble up and die. May 14 12, 7:08 PM

star_gazer

True, there are slugs in other parts of the country. But they are nothing compared to the Seattle variety, which thrives in the region's damp climate. The Seattle slugs (and boy, wouldn't that make a great name for a baseball team?) can be as much as four to five inches long, three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and a ghastly brownish-white in color. Hordes of these creatures can descend on your garden and eat all your lettuce overnight. They may turn up in your driveway, your flower box, even - yuck - your basement, leaving a telltale trail of slime behind. Some say that slugs are a leading cause of death in Seattle, owing to the fact that so many people are grossed out of existence. A few slugs even grow up to become cartoonists for famous newspapers, increasing their power to wreak havoc a thousandfold. But enough of this scare talk. It's true that slugs will dehydrate if you pour salt on them, although I must say that the thought of standing there watching while the slug shrivels up seems uniquely unappetizing. However, the slugs don't scream, for the simple reason that they don't have any vocal apparatus. No doubt what you hear is your own guilty conscience, which is tormenting you for destroying God's creatures. Or maybe it's the hiss of desiccating slug fluids. I don't know, and I don't want to know. A better method of dealing with the slug menace is to put out a pie tin filled with a half inch of beer. The slugs drink the beer, pass out, and drown. (Or so they tell me. I did not stick around long enough to see this actually demonstrated.) You can also use a miracle slug killer called metaldehyde, which was originally developed as a solid fuel for camp cookstoves. One day in the 1930s some campers in South Africa left a can of metaldehyde out all night and awoke to discover it surrounded by recently deceased slugs and snails. Aha, said the campers, slugicide! http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/409/if-you-pour-salt-on-garden-slugs-do-they-shrivel-up-and-scream May 14 12, 9:58 PM