Snails

I have re-homed a couple of garden snails.

It was a terrible night weather-wise the other evening and one had made its way in and was climbing up the wall. I popped it down onto some lettuce and they set about tucking in pretty quickly. Very cute. I found myself immediately bonding with him/her and looked online to see if garden snails could be kept as pets. I was expecting the web to return the line “Yes you can but we don’t recommend it because snails should be free” yet it said nothing of the sort. It said that garden snails make excellent pets.

I then looked into the lifespan of an average garden snail and it’s anywhere from 2 to 5 years although most don’t make it to that as they are predated upon by many different creatures. That’s not to mention those who dry up in the shells in hot weather as well as those who get trampled under foot or run over by cars and other assorted vehicles. Garden snails looked after well can live up to 20 years! I saw that it is best to re-home 2 together so went into the garden and saw a beautiful snail walking about in the long grass, the only other one I could see. I carefully pick it up and brought it back inside, giving them some lettuce to chomp away on.

I initially had them in a decent sized Tupperware container with the lid ever so slightly open so they could breathe but I didn’t feel this was good enough for them. The next day I went out and bought a much better sized container for them and made 4 decent sized holes in the top. I used some masking tape on the lid of the container, where the holes made weren’t as smooth inside as I would have liked so they don’t hurt their feet when they walk about on it.

I have a spray bottle containing spring water to keep their environment moist. They need food and also a source of calcium which you can see in the above image, namely broccoli. I change out their food on a daily basis. Terrarium soil is good too and I am going to look into getting some of that.

What you see in their container is regular top soil, not compost as that contains chemicals which can kill them. No tap water either for the same reason. There is a shallow water bowl for them too as they like to walk through water (again, spring water) which acts as both a bath for them and a means to re-hydrate. They also have leaves to sleep under in the corners of the container and sticks and stones to walk over. I will change out their soil each week and add new sticks and stones and place them in different positions to give them variety and an ever-changing and interesting living environment.

They can’t hear which I’m sad about because I wanted to introduce them to so much great music. They’re also both male and female. Hermaphroditic. They can also reproduce asexually when no mate is around. Amazing creatures. I haven’t decided yet what to name them. It would have to be unisex names.