Bernd, Bill Meyer, who wrote the original article you were looking for tends to agree with you regarding the level of toxicity of both products. While it is true that a smaller amount of metaldehyde is potentially lethal, the nature of Iron poisoning is slow and painful for mammals. In addition metaldehyde manufacturers have added a lot more bitrex, a bitter tasting material, in order to make it less palatable. Here's Bill's explanation in a private email (reprinted with permission): "The metaldehyde bait of prefrence is the MP (mini pellet) size, and that's really what people should use. Pellets are about the size of half a grain of rice. That size is generally small enough for most birds and animals to ignore. Dogs are the main problem with it. The EPA upped the amount of bitrex required tenfold a few years ago and it seems to have reduced poisonings well. The bait component is attractive to most animals but dogs can and do sometimes ignore the bitrex taste. Always spread it very thin - about 3 mini pellets per square foot. That's what we do here and I've never found a poisoned animal or bird with three applications a year for ten years or so. about a tablespoon of this could be fatal to a small dog. The iron phosphate/EDTA baits are quite a bit less toxic by volume so a lot more is needed to kill an animal. On the surface that sounds like "all you need to know", but it isn't by a long stretch. The absence of bitrex and appealing scent could lead to a lot more consumption than the metaldehyde baits. With bags dishonestly marked "safe for pets and wildlife", many people will ignore safety precautions and leave bags where pets might get into them. Then there's the type of poison each is. Metaldehyde is a quick-acting nervous system poison. If you or an animal gets enough to kill it will do so pretty quickly. If it isn't enough to kill, recovery should go well with little or no residual damage. Iron poisoning is much different, and has a nastier side. If high enough to kill, it is pretty nasty in itself, but non-fatal doses can do permanent organ damage, particularly through the digestive system. Additionally, while metaldehyde clears the system quickly, iron continues to build up with each ingestion and is only very slowly cleared from the system. Dogs in particular do not clear excess iron very well at all. As these pellets all last weeks outside repeated feeding outdoors on iron phosphate/EDTA pellets can occur until symptoms appear. Personally I consider them equally poisonous - just in different ways. As long as everybody gets that they should know to be careful about their use and storage. It is long past time for the EPA to put poison warnings on the iron phosphate packaging." Everyone needs to be careful using these baits. Steve

You need to re-apply. It needs to be on the soil/mulch surface only. And repeat as often as necessary after rainfall or if moisture from the soaker starts breaking down the product. In the PNW with our massive slug and snail population, I invest in the super large economy size of Sluggo!!

If I go outside at night, even sprayed-up with Off! all over, I still get bitten alive by mosquitoes. This year, I even had to go to my dermatologist for so many bites which continued to itch way past the normal interval. She gave me a steroidal cream. So going into the garden at night doesn't seem feasible. This year, I didn't put mulch down in the garden and the "landscape workers" blew away any remaining mulch with their leaf blowers. Is there something I can do during the day to get rid of the slugs? My Georgia Peach heuchie is a complete loss, with shredded leaves, but I hope to give it a chance to recover somewhat before the first frost so it will survive winter and come back in the spring. I am not concerned about slugs in the soil next spring unless they are in my grow-bags, as I hopefully won't be here next spring, but in my new apartment with all my hostess and heuchies on the balcony. Georgia Peach was by far the worst affected, and it's in a ceramic planter. A few hostas have a few holes in them, but nothing terrible.

Sorry to hear you've got slugs too! Ugh they're the worst! There is a farm behind my house so we just always wind up with lots of critters. I did buy some sluggo and I probably went a little nuts with it but they had just eaten all of my zinnia seedlings down to stems and I had enough! I also dug holes and put tin cans in them at ground level and then filled the cans with beer. 3 days after the sluggo application and I was pretty much slugless. (Dont let them hear I said that!) And I had huge slugs that were 7 to 10 inches long. I will admit that I was going out there nightly and pouring salt on the ones that were on the sidewalk and that I've picked off so many snails it's insane. But I've had great success with sluggo so far. I'm sure they'll be back, so I'm getting another can of sluggo because that stuff really seems to work. I also like that it's not harmful because I've got dogs. My mom has also been saving all the eggshells and those go around any plant I'm really trying to protect, but I'm not sure if the eggshell thing is just an urban myth or not but it does seem to deter them.