What eats cuke leaves but isn't an insect?

Something is eating my cucumber leaves, chomping them right off where they attach to the vine. I check them religiously every morning for beetles and squash bugs so I would see hornworms, etc. I've set a trap thinking it was a groundhog and baited it with cataloupes to no results, then apple pieces, still nothing.

I've checked for prints but I mulch with hay so that keeps any prints from showing. No scat anywhere in the garden. I don't see any holes, tunnels or other pathways under my fence. The cukes are in raised beds so I would see any droppings from rabbits and I've ruled out deer because there would have been some sort of droppings from them too. That leaves coyote, fox, skunk, groundhog.

it hasn't touched my lima beans or strawberries growing in a nearby bed so what the heck would eat the fuzzy leaves of cukes? Anybody got suggestions for baiting the trap?

slugs

I thought slugs ate holes in the leaves? This thing is eating the entire leaf, my plants are bald, except for the tiny new leaves and the edges of the stems are raggedy
Are you pulling my leg?

They usually eat sections out of the leaf, but on young plants they sometimes eat the whole thing. They hide under the mulch in the day time, so pull it back and look. Slugs are certainly an option, since mammals don't usually bother cukes.

Slugs is certianly one that would do that. I just wanted to add. that three days in a row I chased a young bunny out of my cukes. Yesterday I was armed with a pellet gun. He is no more. I found where vines had been chomped off and that part of the vine, leaves and all were gone. And I had even sprayed a mixture of sevin and deer and rabbit repellant.
Guess he just didn't mind the extra flavor or smell. or else was checking for some that I missed and that happend to be one area not hit. I'm useing sevin to slow the grey beatles as best I can. They are really trying hard to take over this year. Think they are blister beatles, not sure though. I just don't want them to clean out my stuff. If they wanted the weeds that wouldn't bother me. LOL
Just edited this to say Yay I picked my first cuke tonight. These were started from seed. and are mulched with grass clippings. We just came from a big
B-B-Q or we would have eaten it tonight. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Russ

This message was edited Jul 4, 2007 7:48 PM

Actually there is not much mulch in the cuke beds because of the squash bugs, there are so many and I hand pick them, plus the beds dry out really fast and we are below normal rainfall so I don't think it's slugs.

We saw a groundhog yesterday. He was wandering outside the garden but got scared off when I opened the door. For the past few days I've covered the cukes at night with agribon, very lightweight and rebar to hold it down, seems to be working. What I can't figure out is last year they left the cukes alone and ate the Doc martin Lima leaves and all the soy leaves. This year the limas are doing great, either the critter doesn't like the Christmas tree limas or likes cukes better. Also, the critter hasn't touched the butternut squash which is in the same bed, the watermelon and the cantaloupe plants

Very strange but I'm going to sit out there tonight to see if I can get that groundhog. I think he's the one that broke my one and only sunflower!

A deer has been doing the exact same thing to my lemon cukes. I couldn't see any tracks either but it had to be a deer because the tops of the plants are just about all the way up a four foot trellis.

BB

A deer doesn't necessarily stay around long enough for there to be droppings. Ms. Bambi visited us one night last week -- apparently she likes watermelon and cantaloupe vines best as she didn't bother the squash or the cucumbers. She left the watermelons and cantaloupe vines on one side of the plants with just 1" stubs where the leaves used to be. If not for the melons she might have liked the cucumbers and squash better. We put up a 4' Bambi fence, so the next night she came and got the only rosebush outside the 3' house fence. At least it had been on markdown at Lowe's for $2.00. The vines had enough left on them that they seem to be coming back okay.

Check for slugs after dark with a flashlight. If it's not that, my vote goes to Bambi.

Karen