Isn't Florida wonderful? Acid-spitting bugs! LOL.

Sorry about Tavi. Glad to hear she's on the mend.

I was a bit shocked finding out that the things spit acid since I toss them away from my garden bare handed all the time. I won't be doing that anymore!

Tavi seems to be doing better already now that she's no longer running a fever. Hopefully this experience will convice her not to mess with millipedes but I'm not betting on it. I'm going to try to plug up the gaps around the garage door to keep them outside where Tavi can't get them.

Hydrochloric acid?? Don't tell Bamboo Rabbit. He'll start breeding the things to use as blueberry fertilizer.

Kara ....how big are these ? Hope Tavi's OK doug

Tavi's already acting like she's feeling better which is a relief.

The millipedes get to be about 4" long.

Thanks for the warning. My little dog goes after anything that moves. So glad to hear Tavi is doing better. Hope she continues to improve.

I use sulfuric:) Glad the kitty is feeling better. I have handled those millipedes many times and have had the cat carry them around with no ill effects so not sure.

Kara, could you provide a pic of the type of millipede you are talking about? Just to make sure that we aren't thinking of one thing while you're talking about another. Personally, I am thinking of those brownish-gray ones that come up every summer just to die under my steps or other hard-to-reach areas and stink to high Heaven. The other day, while churning some fertilizer around the roots of my blueberries I found quite a few of them living amongst the pine nuggets and coffee grounds. Not sure what they're after, but they don't seem to have a negative effect on my bushes.

Edit: Okay, millipedes feed on organic matter. So they are an unfortunate side effect of keeping our beds mulched.

This post was edited by Leekle2ManE on Sat, Jul 6, 13 at 9:12

Here's a good article about millipedes.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.caes.uga.edu/publications/pubDetail.cfm?pk_id=6198#Description

And here's another one. I couldn't get the picture to appear in the first link but the picture works in this link. The millipede about halfway down the page is the one I find in the garden all the time and was in my bedroom. It's the only thing that I can come up with that could have caused Tavi's injury as I keep all castic cleaners and such locked in cabinets.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ig093