Hard wired; Slugs

jeff kushner

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Joined
Jul 24, 2020
Messages
2,688
Location (City and/or State)
North of Annapolis
Mags posted some pics the other day of one of her little guys munching down on a slug...... I thought; I'm a plumber by trade and even I thought it looked nasty..............but it got me to thinking...always dangerous as it can easily go either way....cool experiment or right off the rails!

Readers digest background;
Matilda has been with me since she was a quarter-sized runt in 6/20....maybe a month old when we found her unside on the walking trail and took her home. She has never even seen a slug that I know of. I decided to maybe introduce her to them, MIXED with foods she knows and loves and see what happens.

Sorry I didn't take any pics because my misting has ruined any thru-the-glass pics till I squeggie them.

I went outside when I got home at 1;30 yesterday and collected what I could from under things....got a half dozen nice fat worms and 2 slugs, a small and a large one.

The Scene;
Matilda is halfway in her fitting on high alert with mid 80's temps.....and had been watching me as I cleaned her dish etc....I came back in and dumped everything from a cup in front of her, the slugs both stuck so they landed a little further away when I shook them out..........she had already been poised to bite a worm, head cocked and all, but when those slugs became visible to her....like a LASER she crawled over the wriggling worms to the first slug and tore into it, then the 2nd, then some worms....

What I observed was a hardwired response to something she had never seen, or at least I think she has never seen. She was lovin her some slugness!

Comparison;
As some of you know, In the 70's I had a large-for-home 3-4ft Spectacled Caiman......and as much as I wanted to impart emotions & feelings to my pets, I learned that caimans are instinct-driven animals. There is no emotion, no buddy-buddy feeling, no "I won't bite you b/c you take care of me", just DNA driven instinct...."get too close, they'll call you lefty" kind of stuff.
Sidebar; If you partake, or did back then.... think of those long BS sessions where you become convinced that "he gets you", he won't bite you when you pet him.......yeah, I came THAT close but never was quite stupid enough to try petting him. LOL

Matilda is the same way......to me anyway(no, not with petting-lol), others of course are free to feel how they choose. I love that she's that way though as I did Greesh the Caiman.....it's like having a miniature roaming dinosaur in a tank in my room! How frigging cool is that? And this one isn't big enough to take a wrist off either if she gets out!

Oh, and Len, she took food into her fitting to eat.....guess it was happening more than I knew!


jeff
 

Cathie G

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Aug 9, 2018
Messages
14,908
Location (City and/or State)
Lancaster
Mags posted some pics the other day of one of her little guys munching down on a slug...... I thought; I'm a plumber by trade and even I thought it looked nasty..............but it got me to thinking...always dangerous as it can easily go either way....cool experiment or right off the rails!

Readers digest background;
Matilda has been with me since she was a quarter-sized runt in 6/20....maybe a month old when we found her unside on the walking trail and took her home. She has never even seen a slug that I know of. I decided to maybe introduce her to them, MIXED with foods she knows and loves and see what happens.

Sorry I didn't take any pics because my misting has ruined any thru-the-glass pics till I squeggie them.

I went outside when I got home at 1;30 yesterday and collected what I could from under things....got a half dozen nice fat worms and 2 slugs, a small and a large one.

The Scene;
Matilda is halfway in her fitting on high alert with mid 80's temps.....and had been watching me as I cleaned her dish etc....I came back in and dumped everything from a cup in front of her, the slugs both stuck so they landed a little further away when I shook them out..........she had already been poised to bite a worm, head cocked and all, but when those slugs became visible to her....like a LASER she crawled over the wriggling worms to the first slug and tore into it, then the 2nd, then some worms....

What I observed was a hardwired response to something she had never seen, or at least I think she has never seen. She was lovin her some slugness!

Comparison;
As some of you know, In the 70's I had a large-for-home 3-4ft Spectacled Caiman......and as much as I wanted to impart emotions & feelings to my pets, I learned that caimans are instinct-driven animals. There is no emotion, no buddy-buddy feeling, no "I won't bite you b/c you take care of me", just DNA driven instinct...."get too close, they'll call you lefty" kind of stuff.
Sidebar; If you partake, or did back then.... think of those long BS sessions where you become convinced that "he gets you", he won't bite you when you pet him.......yeah, I came THAT close but never was quite stupid enough to try petting him. LOL

Matilda is the same way......to me anyway(no, not with petting-lol), others of course are free to feel how they choose. I love that she's that way though as I did Greesh the Caiman.....it's like having a miniature roaming dinosaur in a tank in my room! How frigging cool is that? And this one isn't big enough to take a wrist off either if she gets out!

Oh, and Len, she took food into her fitting to eat.....guess it was happening more than I knew!


jeff
I was checking out TFO to see what I can do and ran across this thread ? and I actually agree with you. We have a cat that I believe loves me to a certain extent. If I dare to brush him though I don't just stop when I get tired. I run for my life ? so I think animals know and simply tolerate us. I trust them to be the animal that they are. But the real reason I answered this is to send you something. I hope you can give your aunt a hug from me and a happy Hanukkah ?IMG_20211129_174217496.jpg
 

jeff kushner

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2020
Messages
2,688
Location (City and/or State)
North of Annapolis
Aww, that's really sweet Cathie and a very much appreciated gesture!

Unfortunately, the weather here has dipped into the 20's in the last week or so at night and seems to have driven the slugs down. I've looked 3-4 times over the long w/e w/o success. I'm sure I could find them o/l though....can find ANYTHING o/l...scares the heck out of me but that's a different discussion.

"I see yer firss problem der mamm, you said "cat""
Storytime;
My oldest sister(you guys already knew I was the younger brother of at least 2...I got 3) once brought home a gutter kitten from NYC & hid it in the bsmt till mom smushed it when she went to find the noise, big vet bill later, my dad falls in love with "Kitty-Kytuu"(don't ask-lol) till it rips into his hand, causing that fairly common cat bite "turnsoneintoawuss" disease where his hand looked like Bill Bixby's when he's pissed(dating myself again) just a different shade of green. I think the cat was just dom or loco. Sounds like yours!!

During my 2 hr interview or "2-way confession" as she refers to it (1st date) with Kerry which preceded this nearly decade long sparkling fling, one of the top questions I had concerned your feline friends<LOL>!!

LOL


jeff
 
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