Holiday: what to do with the snails???

[scarral]

I have two one year old and a few two to three month A. Immaculata snails. We're going on holiday next week from tuesday to saturday, and I haven't found anybody that would be willing to come once a day every day and feed them. What can I do??? Any ideas???

[tsrebel]

Thay will probably be fine. Wild snails aestivate if it gets too dry and wake up when it gets wetter. They can also cope with days without food.
A few tips:
- Make sure that the food you leave for them is not some that rots easily. Sweet potatoe and different seeds (I use sunflower seeds) are suitable. The food should not be grinded - that would make it spoil faster.
- You could also put a live plant in there for them to eat. I often find different salads in the supermarket still planted in pots (just make sure to clean it well with water).

Younger snails are often more vulnerable to dry out, but your snails are old enough and from a specie that tolerates a lot of different conditions.
So there is really no need to worry

[shaydeesnail]

If the snails are fit and healthy, they should be okay if you leave them enough food to at least last a few nights they will likely be fine as snails can actually live a very long time without food and can eat a small amount of soil too. However I wouldn't recommend this if you can any health concerns about them at all, weak snails that need a lot of hand feeding to keep their weight up are of course not suitable, and there is always the possibility that the snails have health issues that you don't know about. So it's up to you if they feel they would be okay! I often leave mine for several days and it hasn't caused them any problems.

I would snail-sit them but the post is probably a lot more dangerous than staying at home haha!

[muddydragon]

Just give them some food which lasts well int he tanks (e.g. sweet potato) and they should be fine. I've left mine over long weekends no problem

[scarral]

I feed them every night cucumber, courgette, tomatoe and mushroom, which Insuppose none of them would be suitable to leave for a few days, since they all spoil so quickly.

I have sunflower seeds. Do I just put them like that? Or do I have to prepare them somehow?

Is there other veggies appart from sweet potatoe that I could leave? Is normal potatoe ok for them to eat? The woman who gave us the snails a year ago said they should never ever under any circumstances eat potatoe, but then again I keep reading lists of foods suitable for snails, and often potatoe is included... What do you think?

There's also a pet shop round the corner, I could maybe buy some fish food or something. Would that work? What kind of fish food could I get? I think I read somewhere that gold fish food is highly nutricious, good for sick snails (although I don't think mine are sick...). Would that do the trick?

[Dumbledore]

You could possibly just take them with you in small container.

Fish food is great for snails, healthy or sick. Mine gobble it up. But you have to mist it first so that it's all mushy, and it spoils quickly.

[shaydeesnail]

Courgette doesn't spoil too quickly in my experience, try sprinkling calcium powder or powdered cuttlefish on top of the food as this keeps it a little drier.

[scarral]

So how about the normal potatoe? Has anyone tried it? Should I cook it first, or can I give it raw? If the former, does it spoil quickly?

[scarral]

How about oats? Can I give them dried oats and sunflower seeds?

[shortie]

I wouldn't recommend normal potato and it starts fermenting and gives off a nasty smell after being exposed to air for a few hours! It'll be vodka by the time you came home! I leave mine nearly every Friday to Sunday since I stay over at my boyfriends and the get left with hemp seeds, oats, sunflower seeds, calcium powder and a sprinkle of dried gecko diet. Even in my humid tiger tank it stays dry and mould free and most of it's gone!

[Dumbledore]

Possibly, you could just buy a sweet potato from the grocery store, slice it up, and spread it around the tank? They shouldn't be too hard to find. Also maybe add a water dish or two (shallow!) to keep humidity up.

[malacophile]

I've noticed that sweet potato, carrot, iceberg lettuce, raw potato tend to keep well, and I've used those when I was away for a week. Give them a little peanut butter before you go, too. They clean the stuff up quickly and it'll give them an extra nutrient and caloric boost for when you can't feed them.

[muddydragon]

Sweet potato is the star of food that keeps well in tanks. Putting the food at the cooler end also helps. You could also buy some of that growing lettuce from the shops wash it and the roots thoroughly and plant it in the tank (it won't last for ever but it lasts well). Give them a good feeding before the final feeding (e.g. damp fishflakes or damp oats - both of which go off quickly). Big chunks last longest so you could buy a sweet potato and just chop it in half (lengthways) and give them a whole chunk, i've seen sweet potato last nearly two weeks like this in a tank before.

RE oats, i wouldn't give them dry as they could swell in the body of the snail and kill them (although it sounds like it works ok for shortie? so maybe this commonly mentioned advice is untrue?). Soaked they are good but they wouldn't make a good holiday food as they usually go off after a day.

[shortie]

More hemp seeds in there than oats Finely powdered up and I usually leave them Friday night and return on the Sunday night. White poops EVERYWHERE!!!! At least it makes the clean up easier But they seem fine. I think it's whole oats or large amounts that will swell inside the body. It happens when you feed goldfish pellets to fish before soaking them, the swell up and cause swim bladder disease and they struggle to poop and swim So it made more sense to put less oats in with the mix to reduce the risk of too much swelling

[scarral]

I found sweet potatoes! So I'll leave that, and carrot and sunflower seeds. I hope that'll do! I'll let you know when I come back.

Thanks for your suggestions!

[scarral]

Hey guys! I came back yesterday to find that carrots were not such a good idea, since snails didn't eat much of them and they were full of fungi on the surface. But they absolutely loved the sunflower seeds and the sweet potatoe. All the snails are fine and growing! I even found some sunflower sprouts that the snails ate too! I go away again on tuesday for a couple of days, so now I know what to do! And the best thing is that I don't really need a snailsitter!

Anyway, thanks for all your comments, they were really helpful!

[muddydragon]

fab news!