Help My Aspersa Has Laid EGGS

[Johnnywho]

Hi everyone I was going to check on my aspersas and I found a batch of eggs!
I really want to keep them alive so what can I do to help them hatch?

[bugz2go]

Well done ! Try not to disturb them at all, just leave them were they are and do nothing. If the adults have laid eggs it is a very good sign that the set up is perfect for them. The hatchlings will soon hatch and emerge to the surface were they will start to eat the food and calcium supply you give to the adults. The hatchlings will be quite small so make sure any large air gaps/holes are covered yet still clear. After they are about a week old it will be safe to carefully transfer them to a smaller tank should you wish. This obviously makes cleaning out much easier. Regards Paul
www.bugz2go.com

[Johnnywho]

Thanks Paul!

[hairyal]

well,this is my first post and am glad to say that my have laid a load of eggs too!!!
any tips etc would be grateful as to egg welfare
thanks and will keep you all updated
;D ;D ;D ;D

[Johnnywho]

Haha, Hairyal it seems we both have the same problem

[coyote]

Whenever my aspersas have laid eggs, I've always let them be, and they have hatched just fine. I have never done anything special at all for them.

It is well to keep in mind that not every egg will hatch, even under optimal conditions, and not every hatchling will survive into adulthood. This is just how Nature works when it comes to species such as snails, even if you do everything right for them in the tank.

[Johnnywho]

Yeah I just hope at least some of them do haha

[hairyal]

well,i took a few(100ish eggs out as didnt want to be over run with babies.got about 30 eggs ,left them in the tank and now just waiting

[pinkunicorn]

Woots, I managed to find a topic with the search... (found out there's a date setting, which had prevented me from finding ANYTHING at all previously, doh)

Anyway, I was in the hospital for a few days and my partner told me he had found (and squished) an aspersa egg in the meantime. He kindly told me this after I was going silly with worry seeing one of my snailies with a very, very swollen head (which kind of returns to normal if it retracts its body, but then bulges soon again)... well, hearing of the single egg I thought there must be more coming, that would explain the swollen head. And soon, looking at that burrowing behaviour that's going on in the box right now!! Well, the snaily with the swollen head isn't burrowing at the moment, the two others that usually like to sleep on the wall are doing something suspicious in the soil.

Earlier this year there was a few little ones... which my partner disposed of, as he was taking care of them snailies while I was away and didn't know what else to do. But now that I am taking care of them I figured, if I'm getting babies, I'll take those babies.

I read that some 80 eggs, but given how BIG they are for such a small snail... I just can't believe they lay them all at once, it seems like such an exaggeration. Where do they store 80 3-5mm diameter eggs before laying? Not in their shells, it's simply impossible, lol! Three of my four aspersas are super-fat all of sudden, so I guess that's where some of the eggs are stored. A week ago I was sure they were getting ready for hibernating, given they were a bit sleepy (and one seemed ill... seems to have gotten over the minor gut extrusion, yay).

Umm sorry I'm rambling a little and a little unclear. I'm on heavy painkillers (just out of hospital today, see) and it may be affecting my train of thought a little, lol.

[pinkunicorn]

I took a pic of the head... is this normal? I don't recall seeing it with my old fulicas, ever. It doesn't seem to bother it, can retract into shell and everything. And it is the size of an egg...

The pics are huuuge to here's the links instead of posting:

one

two

[axoloa]

Id definitly agree with Paul 'Bugs2go' and Coyote on this one I check all my enclosures dayly both for eggs and to give fresh food. Somehow I managed to overlook my first batch of aspesa eggs and then one day I came across 78 babies crawling around the enclosure with the adults After that I have found egg batches since and have just allowed them to hatch wherever they were laid but then again,theirs very few species that I do move the eggs. Usualy I just move the parents (depending on the species). With aspersa I wouldent bother, id just maybe move the babies in about 3 or 4 weeks when their better established... this is what i did and their all doing just great

[coyote]

Pinkunicorn, I hope you're okay now after being in the hospital. I looked at the pics, and while they were a little dark to tell for sure, the snail looks okay. As long as it's eating and behaving normally, there's probably little to worry about.

[pinkunicorn]

Thanks for looking.. and yeah, now it seems OK again.

I finally found the eggs. Only about 7 of them, and NOT where I expected to find them... Aspersas are supposed to burrow for egg-laying, and that's what they did, sort of. But the tiny clutch of eggs was actually on the surface, under a piece of pottery, and I would have missed it had I not removed the pottery for cleaning! I decided to take the eggs out, knowing how tiny the newborns are I would probably miss them otherwise (as I did the previous times they laid eggs, judging by the few tiny empty shells I found buried in the soil, plus the ones that were discarded...)

But hurray, at least I got eggs now! I hope I also get babies... at least a few. Seven or so eggs isn't a lot.

[axoloa]

lol 7 eggs? that sounds like maybe test eggs if its their first time. sometimes snails do this to make sure their body is functioning well in advanced for breeding heard that recently actualy from another thread XD comming from me personaly now, however, I think if it was test eggs then you should definitly expect more sometime soon (full sized batches of sterile eggs). Its posible that even test eggs are sterile but unfortunatly not very likely. if they are sterile however, then expect more very very soon, as they will have had to mate in order to produce sterile eggs meaning theirs another snail in their with eggs still inside it

[pinkunicorn]

Could they be laying several batches of test eggs? Their breeding pattern seems very weird, see. I've witnessed (they have possibly gotten on with it without me seeing, too) the same pair mating three times (that's including the threesome, lol) and there's never been a huge clutch of eggs. But I know there's been babies before because of the tiny empty shells... they just didn't make it, I wasn't even aware of them being there until I found the empty shells. My boyfriend has also discarded some eggs while snail sitting for me, before he knew that I wanted babies.

They got plenty of food, plenty of cuttle and oyster shell to choose from, they're eating well when not sleeping... we've even gotten beyond the "only cucumber peel" problem that I had, when they were refusing all other foods. Now they eat almost anything offered after a few tastings. There's plenty of room for burrowing in the soil, which they do a LOT. The tank is sprayed twice a day to keep it nice and humid. So everything should be OK. Just the big clutch of eggs missing.

[saki114]

johnnywho & hairyal, what's the update now?

[blueotter]

I am pretty sure my "aspersas" are actually M. thyroidus. But more importantly is that there are at least 18 tiny babies, and I'm not raising them for escargot! I'm a vegetarian and wanted only 1 as a pet, but the seller insisted on sending 2! I knew when they mated, but have been ill, so missed stealing the eggs to slip into the freezer. I'm not prepared for so many! What do I do now?

[Zorst]

Advertise them on here and see if you can sell them?

Also are they native to where you live because if they are and at the right time temp wise if you have somewhere safe and quiet you could release some of them. But check first that they are native to where you are, and don't release them in the wrong types of temperatures.

Zorst