My first baby GALS!

[etana]

Two days ago I got my first GALS, not so giant yet though as his shell measures less than 2 cm! He's called Tauno, and he has his own little tank.      



After having Ariantas and Cepaeas, wow, this snail is the same size with them but SO different. Compared to them, he takes his sweet long time doing every little thing, and the other ones seem like very fast, brave, curious, even mean snails. Lol! It was so funny putting food in front of Tauno and see him just stare at it without doing ANYthing for a long time, because within that time the Cepaeas and Ariantas would have definitely decided to either eat it or slime away. 

If I remember correctly he's Achatina Fulica var Jadatzi form Rodatzi, though do correct me if I'm wrong! His foot is grey.

Soon I'll get another young GALS so Tauno doesn't have to live alone, and he'll be from a completely different line so if they make sweet snaily love one day and I miss the eggs, the babies won't be inbred.  

[cliath]

Congratulations! He is super cute! I got my first gals a few weeks ago. They really do like to take their time!

[Zorst]

Congrats and Very cut. I have a few of Tauno's brothers n sisters, and yeah they sure do take some time deciding to do or eat anything.

Zorst

[etana]

Thanks Cliath and Zorst! I wish I could tell Tauno where his siblings went.

I think he's becoming a little bit more active. This morning I saw him stretching over to reach a leaf from the top of his hiding place! He might have grown a whole 1 mm of new shell, too. Hehe!

[etana]

All right. Tauno has grown a few mm and has turned into a very active, happy little snailie. He's still slow of course, but now he either sleeps or explores around instead of just sitting in one place doing nothing. He has his own strange little things that he does, such as that whenever I take him out of his little tank for bathing or other adventures, he'll stretch as high up as he can and then flail around - and he does that every time! Many new and interesting things for a little snail to smell and see, I guess!  


Here little Tauno is resting at the root of a spider plant, and that's my index finger for comparison. He's still such a little baby.

Also, today I got a friend for Tauno! While Tauno is a cross-breed, my new snail Taavetti is an A. Fulica Rodatzi. He was supposed to be only a little bit bigger than Tauno, but I think the seller had inches and cm's mixed or something like that. His face alone is almost as big as the whole of Tauno! 


This is Taavetti resting after his rough day! His shell is not that white, the flash of my camera turned the colours weird. He's very, very lovely. I'm hoping to soon get pictures of them both outside of their shells, they have very interesting colour differences.

With the size difference this dramatic, I had to make sure that Taavetti wouldn't be hostile or ignorant towards baby Tauno. I flipped over the lid of the small tank and placed them both and food on it. First Tauno was very nervous and shy, he'd run away, hide behind things etc, and Taavetti would follow him and gently pat on his shell with his eye stalk. Finally Tauno came out from behind the food, snapped his breathing hole many, many times, and then they snailed towards each other and had their eye stalks touch. My Ariantas do that when snailing past their friends, so I decided that this all meant Taavetti understands what the little snail is and Tauno too is getting over the initial shyness, and they said a proper hello to each other.


Their current home. Not big, but I hope it's convenient. There's pieces of apples, cuttlebone, plants, a flower pot for hiding, and the big scallop shell is for Taavetti to bathe in (and maybe for additional calcium). There's also a small scallop shell that worked as Tauno's bath, I don't know if that'll be used for bathing now but I kept it in there anyway, and will be keeping water in it too, like before.

I'm so happy!

[Zorst]

Ahh they look great and so glad that you got Taavetti as a friend for
Tauno and that they get on and are happy snailing around together.

Zorst

[etana]

Thanks! I hope they can also be mates once they grow up, and have some babies.

With Taavetti here, my snail music is suddenly much louder, lol! He's a noisy eater! So far I haven't heard him rasp at calcium, but I'm sure I will soon enough.

[cliath]

Their shells are lovely! When I got my lot they all had a bit of bad Shell growth. Thankfully the new growth looks well.

I'm glad tauno and Taavetti are friend.

[etana]

They are! Sorry to hear your snails' shells were that way, but it's good to hear they're doing better. I hope that Tauno will grow a shell as lovely as Taavetti has.

Me too, it'd have been problematic if Taavetti didn't have a positive attitude about little Tauno. I can't help but laugh at the situation though - meeting someone whose face is as big as your body! Hahah, really no wonder he was a little shy at first!

[etana]

Taavetti eats soaked kitten food from my finger! He ate the whole piece in one, wait no, two sittings.


Erm, just a quite strange eating position, photo taken through the wall of the tank with no flash.



See where little Tauno is? I'm sure that soon these two will sleep shell against shell, they already got this close to each other today just after exploring each others' earlier sleeping places.
The size difference still makes me lol. Still yet to get good pictures of them both outside their shells, but I'll try and have my camera ready.

[Zorst]

Great photo#s and they seem to be settling in well together.

Zorst

[etana]

Thanks. It still seems that Taavetti is more interested in baby Tauno than vice versa, right now he's in fact attempting to get some sleep in the very same corner where the little one has dug a tunnel for himself. I'm sure things will be fine between the two, Taavetti is so gentle and nice.

[etana]

Hahaha, Taavetti placed himself over Tauno's tunnel, and Tauno sneaked out and went to sleep at the ceiling, almost right above Taavetti.

[muddydragon]

gorgeous photos! so lovely

[etana]

Thanks muddydragon!


]

Here are the two sitting on a swede.

But oops, Taavetti appears to have reached sexual maturity exactly today!! His cheek is bulging like crazy. Woah... Let's hope that he knows better than to harass baby Tauno!

[muddydragon]

Don't worry i'm sure he wouldn't harass the younger one, when they first reach sexual maturity they tend just to doa lot of flexing to start with.

[etana]

All right, thanks muddydragon. I hadn't observed any harassing, but they sleep when I'm awake the most, and vice versa.

Haha, the first pics in this thread are so funny to see now because they've grown so much! I really have to do a photo update. Taavetti's face is so wide now, and his shell so heavy! Tauno still has baby spots on his shell, but he's growing wonderfully too.

They're sleeping now though, with only the tiniest bits of the tips of their shells showing. Lol, Achatinas may be slow, but they're definitely funny.

[etana]

My lovely little Tauno, not so little but definitely lovely Taavetti, and a not quite as lovely rotting apple (from a tree down a local street) that especially Taavetti loves very much.

Photo taken tonight. These two are going to be a gorgeous pair once they grow up, with their different colourings and all!

[muddydragon]

awwwwwwww. im curious after eating do they have some odd behaviour? I just ask as my parents garden has a huge ancient apple tree so theres often a lot of rotten apples about, i've seen allsorts eating these and wasps and butterflies especially get "drunk" and forget how to fly and yet they still love the accidental cider

[etana]

Lol! I had to think about this for a bit. Usually I've woken up to the snails sleeping and huge bits of the rotting apple eaten, with everything small in the tank moved around. Taavetti is always silly like that though, pushing everything around with his forehead like a bulldozer, so I almost replied "I don't know".

Last night though, after my photoshoot, I think Taavetti may have been drunk.

Once he stopped eating the rot, and Tauno had climbed on the apple, I put the little guy with the apple back into the tank. Then I flipped the lid they're sitting on in the picture, so that Taavetti was hanging upside down (he was very well suctioned onto it). Little Tauno instantly went on a trip around the spider plant, he does that all the time as he still can, but Taavetti had lots of trouble coming down from the lid even though he'd known just what to do before! He'd reach at the walls of the tank with his mouth but not take a good grip, his shell looked so heavy, his breathing hole was gigantic, his love bits were bulging. I attributed it all to him simply having grown too big to climb safely anymore and helped him down, after which he pushed his face into the wall for a while, then pulled his eyes and most of his face inwards but left his eyestalks out, and rested for a bit, with his rolled up face outside his shell.

I was worried he'd gotten hurt, and decided that I'd investigate him if he'd still be there in this unusual position in the morning, but when I briefly woke up at 6 am, I checked on him. He'd pooped where he'd rested earlier, turned everything over once again (including a much bigger cuttlebone than the one in the photo) and snailed to the very end of the plastic flower pot I have in the tank instead of sleeping in a hole like he usually does.

Unfortunately fruit flies had found the apple and were swarming around it, so I had to throw it away. Oh well, apple season isn't over yet. I might offer something that isn't rotting for a few days now, though.

[Zorst]

AHH GALS can be huge n still love hanging up side down on the tank lid n walls, the Tiger snail and the Margies here spend a good amount of there time hanging around on both without any problems. So my thoughts are he must have been a little drunk lol!

I once had a horse who got in an orchard where there were cider apples, needless to say she was one very drunk mare who slept for about 24 hrs then woke up with the hang over from hell. Man was she grouchy for the next few days thankfully she didn't colic, she also from her own choice never broke into or even wandered into that orchard again.

I also used to have a pet deer who was a rescue n ended up house trained he was virtually blind in one eye after an RTA with numerous other injuries anyway an animal rescue group who I wont name felt him fit for release despite him being unweaned, half blind n badly injured. A local vet asked me to take care of him as he had become part of the evidence in a court case against this group and he did heal up eventually and ended up staying with me for a number of years as a pet as he was unsuitable for re release.

Well one day I left a glass of wine on the side with some creme de cassias in it which its basically alcoholic black current juice n someone called to the front door. I went to answer the door only to find when I got back that the deer had drunk that glass of wine because it smelt like Black current.

Well deer cud there food n have 4 stomachs so he had to cud that lot 4 times n he was pretty much drunk for 4 days n kept burping black current. I have to say it was funny to watch but I had to keep a real good eye on him, he was perfectly fine but lesson learnt on my part everything had to be high up on shelves after that including all plants , fruit n veg as none of that was safe either.

Snails are much easier to keep.

Zorst

[sparrow]

The photos are wonderful and the baby is adorable, especially eating from your finger!!

[etana]

Wow Zorst, thanks for sharing the stories. Now I think Taavetti truly was a bit drunk when he forgot how to come down from the lid and tried to push through walls. Also generally spoken, it's very good to know that much bigger snails than him can hang upside down without problems. I'll keep an eye on him still, of course.

I think snails are generally very harmless and easy compared to many other animals that people keep. Especially a drunken snail who's locked into a tank that he can't open and has nothing dangerous inside - completely different to drunken/hungover big mammals I'm sure!

After my last post in this thread, I was checking the tank with a flashlight. Taavetti was resting, facing the end of the pot, but he pushed out one big eye and stared at me with it from behind his shell for as long as I used the light. Then he pulled it back in and continued sleeping. As if the light was super annoying exactly then, hahah. Later he ate lots and lots of cuttlebone.

The "animal rescue group" makes me angry. Some kids (and adults too, I'm afraid) truly have no idea that they're actually hurting the animals they think they're helping.

Also thanks, Sparrow! I totally agree, too. I should finger feed them soon again if I have the time, it's so much fun!

Speaking of finger feeding, the other day, little Tauno tried to eat my fingernail when I was checking if he'd just climb on my hand. I'm not sure what he thought it was, but his little snaily mouth is surprisingly strong, he pulled very hard!  I don't think I'll let Taavetti even try that, if a snail who's a fraction of his size is so strong already. 

[etana]

Indeed, I've seen Taavetti come down from the lid just fine after the aforementioned drunken time.

I got another snail yesterday! He's a young Achatina balteata who's now called Mauno. I had him say hello to Tauno & Taavetti, it did eventually go very well and I could let them all live together. Before I got him, I bought a bigger box, with a transparent lid this time.

I'll post pics later.

[etana]

Here we go!


Here's Mauno on some radish leaves.