Why do you love snails?

[anaandthesnail]

Some of you may seen me chatting on here before about setting up my little snail breeding business. It's nothing fancy, all a bit twee and all about bringing the relxation of keeping snails in to peoples lives and introducing the unusual pet to more families homes.

As part of the website, I want to have a page talking about the benefits of keeping snails. For me, I find it really relaxing just watching them slide about their tank and get a lot of satisfaction out of watching them eat. What about you? I am looking for maybe 3-4 sentences about why you love your snails and why you'd reccomend them? With your prior permission of course, the quotes wil lbe used on the website for the company.

Many thanks in advance

[vallery]

Hi anaandthesnail ,

I have cepaea hortensis and cepaea nemoralis plus one oxychilus alliaras . There is something so beautiful about they way my cepaeas move and maneuver themselves. They are so graceful. They are amazing creatures in so many ways. I love my little oxy blue , he is very mysterious and shy, nothing like my cepaeas.He doesn't move around to much, but I love his beautiful blue skin and glassy shell. You can see photo albums of my snails on rosiesnail2's website Land Snail Guide and even post an album yourself on there I would love to see your snails. just click on the site address under any one of her comments.
(sorry a little more than just a few lines

vallery

[tsrebel]

They are relaxing to watch, like meditation. I think they are interesting because they are so different from humans. There is also an ethical aspect to keeping them, as they don't need a lot of space and I don't think they feel trapped in captivity (unlike birds, rodents and fish). I think you can have a closer relationship with a snail than a fish, because you can actually touch it. And the shells can be really pretty. They are also very tolerant and will just aestivate for a while if the conditions are wrong. A child as young as 6 yo could have the responsibility to care for them, with some supervision. I think it's important that children learn the value of living creatures very different from humans, to understand the value of biodiversity, not just protecting cute animals that we can relate to.
Personally, I appreciate that they move so slow (although faster than most people think). That they are hermaphrodites may help us to understand the diversity in nature, in humans as well. As a transgender man, this is important to me.

[rosiesnail2]

Thanks for supporting me Val! yes just click the land snail guide link. Tell me what you think

I own 3 Retics and 2 Fulcia. I love it when they slime up your arm because its like a massage and its quite cold and refreshing I also love it when they move there heads up and down as if to say "yes we are fine!"

Hope this helps. Rosie x

[saki114]

as tsrebel, I think they are very meditative to watch. I like their cold, slimy feeling when they crawl on your arm. it is also actually beautiful when one of their eyestalks sort of curl in when they bump into something

[vallery]

Hi anaandthesnail,

Yes I agree with rosiesnail2, even though we have different types of snails, how they bob their heads up and down like they are saying they are fine, like they are okay. Happy
vallery

[pinkunicorn]

I find the appearance of snails and slugs fascinating. They are so alien compared to humans, and not dramatically different from their profoundly alien ancestors that lived 500 million years ago. The shell, the soft foot and the tentacles have remained a trademark. Snails were there long before the dinosaurs, and they were there long after the reign of dinos as we think of them, giant "lizards", was over*. Snails will probably be around long after humans are gone, slowly sliming their way accross the alien-looking future forest floors, eating the kind of weird plants we can only imagine now. Hopefully, in a million years the then-current sapient gardener has made peace with the gastropod kind.

Snails and slugs are some of the underdogs of the animal kind. They are pests, breed aggressively and have a taste for the same plants as humans. So a lot of people despise them. That gives me an extra incentive to love them.

I love watching a snail or a slug go about its business. Finding a new food item, inspecting it and tasting it. I love the reactions; the tentacles curling down close to a food I assume is particularly tasty, perhaps to get more of that taste with the sensors located at the tips of the eyestalks. Sometimes the stalks get bended backwards, yet the food appears just as appealing. Last night I watched a snail eat sugar snaps for the first time. First the tentacles reached down, as is normal with the yummy foods. The snail kept eating for hours, and as time went by the tentacles started to move back to upright position, then down, finally almost resting on the snail's back! Eventually it fell asleep, with the pod still in its mouth. I should have taken a picture.

Slugs have different, but just as cute expressions. My little slugs' whole head moves when they eat! They will taste all new foods when they first come into contact with them, which seems to be another side of their exploratory nature. Which is something I've come to greatly appreciate. I love watching them explore the terrarium at night. They are not content in very small containers, which has led to some escapades before. Two with a happy ending. One with less so. And, I find them cute in their own, endearing way. Even my very plain and translucent little Deroceras slugs are beautiful. So delicate and fragile little creatures, bravely crawling forward, waving their tiny tentacles, in a world that is little else that lights and shadows in their eyes, yet filled with smells that guide their way. The unhurried determination of the slug, and the snail, is something a lot of people could learn from. It is meditative and calming to stop and observe, and to listen.

That's why I love snails and slugs.


* Dinosaurs are well alive and kicking today, but lizards they aren't. You eat a modern dinosaur, if you visit a well-known fast food restaurant named with three letters.

[ilovegals7]

i like my snail when his eye stalks are out fully.he looks so cute. i also like it when he sits in his water bowl. he just fits snugly. our snails areso reliont on us and we {petsnails.com} should make it our job to spread the word of sanils and we SHOULD talk about why we love them cos we do !!!!!

[graemepryce]

I think from an adult point of view they are very relaxing and sometimes entertaining to watch if you have an attractive tank for them.

They do have a lot of character for such small creatures, they have likes and dislikes and two of the same species will behave totally differently if you know what to look for. Every enthusiast will tell you that they do seem to have their own basic personalities.

Another reason i admire them is that for a creature that is so slow and soft bodied they are really rather fearless and they are always gregarious explorers, usually finding their way to anything new in their environment for a taste and a feel within a short time.

Finally - when they are cleaned and used to being handled they can be very cute in an innocent sort of way. In a well built vivarium they can also look much more beautiful than a tank of fish and you have a much easier time maintaining the tank.

I could go on . . . . . . lol

[ilovegals7]

there so........... snaily. snaily is now my new favriot word cos it describes my snail perfectly!

[pinkunicorn]

Snaily is a good word. So is sluggy. But my new favourite is slimeyface. I saw someone call snails with that word in Finnish, and it sounded awfully cute so I tried to work out a translation. It's not as cute in English as it is in Finnish, and I can imagine someone else came up with the word before. But it works!

[latebloomer]

I saw shnecken and slimaki on a website, and thought they were were great words for snails. I love my snails beautiful shells and the calm tranquil impression they impart. I love to watch them eat, and those wonderful eyestalks moving around. They can be very amusing in their innocent actions. One of my margies was asleep behind the water bowl, shortly after I entered the room the eyestalks appeared sticking straight up lke a giraffes horns. After about a minute, satisfied that nothing was going on , the eyestalks disappeared again. Really cute!

[feelahthetigress]

Well, I guess I'll throw in my 2 cents worth. I've had a number of different kinds of pets over the years (dogs, cats, guinea pigs, fish) and I've known/been around people who had even more different kinds of pets (goats, rabbits, chickens, turtles, snakes, etc.), so I have a wide variety of experiences to compare to. Out of all these animals, I feel that snails are the easiest to care for. Plus, i found out that I'm allergic to almost anything with fur or feathers (that's why I had been so sick). I'm not allergic to snails though! ;D Anyway, snails are the absolute easiest to care for, since you only need to clean their tanks and it's not like cleaning up after other animals that are far more messy/difficult (such as guinea pigs, who are horribly filthy). Plus I like snails because they don't really require a lot of attention. They don't get stressy like dogs if you ignore them for awhile, they don't make noise like most every other animal, they don't require walking, they don't shed fur everywhere, they stay confined to their tank so they can't have "accidents" on the carpet, they aren't as persnickety as keeping fish (that require constant confusing monitoring of the water PH/chemicals/whatnot), they are low cost pets in that they don't require much food, and the food they do eat is not expensive/exotic, they do not bite, and they don't seem to get offended when I refer to them as "poo-beasts" (they do seem to like pooing - a lot).

On top of all that, they are irresistably cute! I like their little eyestalks and their expressions and it feels oddly satisfying watching them eat stuff you've put in their for them. Plus, their movements are fascinating to watch. I don't know why, they move so slowly, but I find them very entertaining and also strangely relaxing to watch. So, after much consideration, I think they are the most low-cost, easiest maintenance, and easiest pets in general to keep. I literally can't think of a pet that is easier than snails. Or cuter. Or more hypoallergenic. Nope, can't beat that!

[pinkunicorn]

I especially love my little slugs during feeding time. Yesterday for example they got all their favourite foods: fish pellets, sweetcorn, blueberries, and cooked carrot. They're so funny when they get a whiff of the foods and put their heads up, waving tentacles like crazy to locate the food. And this happens with dozens of slugs doing it at the same time and then racing for the food. Now they even had trouble choosing between the yummies, and some were alternating between corn and fish food... they poop a lot and their tank is the most difficult to clean but it's so worth it to see them go nuts!

[PennyFarthing]

I love the way the snails wake up when the bedroom light goes on. I don't know whether it's the click that they hear, because the energy bulbs take a long time to warm up and give out light, but it's really sweet. I also like the way that they watch us as we watch them - or when we're using the computer and aren't taking as much notice of them.