I'm afraid my snail has digestive problems again/still

[etana]

Some of you may remember me writing about my lovesick Taavetti who caught some cold in December and stopped eating, pooping and growing, and just slept instead. At Christmas he healed himself by sleeping by the heatmat (which I started using much more when I realised all my snails were in danger - my thermometer had been placed wrong too), got his guts functioning again, and for a while he ate very, very greedily. His lovesickness was cured too.

The reasons I'm concerned now:
- He kind of started growing again, but didn't, but did, but didn't. As a result he has about 3mm of weird growth at his shell edge
- his poops are very small for a snail his size - I've seen him poop four times more at a time when he was smaller
- he's taken up lots of sleeping again
- he does eat, but he doesn't take his sweet time at the foods like others do, but rather takes a taste and then appears to get distracted
- inside his shell, through the breathing hole can be seen what looks like a weird egg. It appeared there before he had mated (though he did make practise eggs before too) and hasn't changed at all. 

I did recently get a new, much bigger tank that has a slightly colder cold end than the previous one had (always at least 22 degrees Celsius though), but my other snails are doing great so I doubt it's an issue with the tank conditions. Mauno the Balteata is in the middle of a gigantic growth spurt and seems to look different each time I see him. My Tiger baby Gaius has grown a whole centimeter of shell during the short time he's been here, my bigger Tiger Ewert is growing as well and enjoying lots and lots of bathing. My big mommy snail Halonen is pregnant again (from mating with Taavetti a while ago) and is a sleepy, hungry mom who binges on calcium, just like she was when she last was pregnant. The previously slow-growing Tauno has caught up in size to Taavetti and will be bigger than him at any moment now, because Taavetti isn't growing normally.

Any ideas what I could do? Is there anything I should look for in his behaviour or appearance? 

Thanks for any ideas.  

[etana]

I'm replying to my own thread here but I spent the day thinking of this when I wasn't busy studying, and here are some thoughts:

- I must keep peeking into his breathing hole - whatever the egg shaped thing is, I must also know if he is in fact pregnant, or if other anomalies appear
- I'll make a point to offer him highly nutritious food and make sure that the others (*ahem ahem* Halonen *ahem*) don't spread out over it or anything silly like that - possibly by feeding him outside the tank, if he's not too excited about being outside to eat

That's all I can think of, for now. 

[etana]

Darn... he's definitely unwell. Yesterday he was sleeping in a burrow, I checked on him in the evening and saw that he wasn't sealed in, but covered himself in slime that had dried. His heart was beating maybe 20 beats per minute and he wasn't in deep retraction, but he was sort of limp in the shell. Normally a snail would never let me do anything about the pace he comes out of the shell, but I was able to touch Taavetti and have him just sort of slide out, complete with his little face and all.

Slowly, very slowly he woke up and pushed his eyes out, and I gave him a very warm bath and offered him apple and tomato. He was like "Ohhh! Yum!", turned his eye stalks down, made his face into a ball, ready to chomp - and then no. He suddenly turned his head away again.

I bathed him more, he stuck to my hand so tightly it nearly felt bad on my skin. At least he trusts me enough to do that. When I returned him to the tank though, he in fact let go of my hand by himself before I placed him back, quite a coincidence or maybe he's learned that that makes returning him easier for both of us. I put him in the bath tub and placed the foods next to the tub, and he spent a LONG time touching the foods all over, making eating movements, but then he dug a burrow again and I saw he'd only taken miniature bites.

At least he made the burrow in the warm end of the tank. I'm so worried.

[Zorst]

Have you tried him with a snail mash with his fav veg and a bit of cuttle fish scrapings in etc. That sometimes helps get a snail to eat. Just a thought. You could also try a small slice of cucumber , I know its not very nutritious but it can get them interested in eating so something I also do when needed, they all seem to love it. Also will he rasp on any cuttle fish? I know its extremely worrying when they wont eat and I hope that helps some and he starts eating again. Keep us posted.

Zorst

[morningcoffee]

Zorst's ideas are good - try cooking some food, mashing it up and offering it. There may be some reason he doesn't want to eat solid food, perhaps a mouth problem?
Keep giving warm baths each night (just sit him in some warm water). I remember muddydragon has found this to help with snails who weren't eating or pooping in the past.

[etana]

Thanks Zorst and Morningcoffee, I'll be doing those things, and write how it goes. Since he also chose a very warm burrow place I'll try not to disturb his rest in it too much.

He is interested in cuttlefish, feeling all over it with his tentacles, but I didn't see him rasp it either. His mouth looks normal on the outside, but I'll try to look more carefully at how he uses it, etc.

I fully believe in warm baths helping with snaily stomach problems, I've seen snails go at it by themselves. Like my Ewert. I didn't know he had a gut problem at all, but a couple weeks ago he took a crazily long bath in the tub warmed up by the heatmat, fell asleep in the moss right next to it, and when he next woke up, where he'd slept was the biggest snail poop I've ever seen. And he's not my biggest snail. I guess he'd been constipated; another question is, does anyone know what causes snaily constipation?

[morningcoffee]

Feb 20, 2015 10:08:30 GMT etana said:

I guess he'd been constipated; another question is, does anyone know what causes snaily constipation?

I suspect we probably don't know enough about their biology and digestive systems in particular to be able to say for sure, sadly.

However, I found this very interesting when I read it - from "The Life of Achatinidae in London" from 1974, part of a study that was carried out on various GALS (Achatina and Archachatina species).

After the snail wakes up:
"it extends its head and foot and ambulation commences, the dorsal body waves now being more powerful. Shortly after this a snail may cease ambulation, its head being slowly lowered to the soil and then raised again. The process is repeated a number of times and the soil below the head is ingested, leaving a shallow depression that is wet from the snail's activities - apparently due to secretion that accompanies the dorsal body waves. Ambulation may then recommence, the snail may delicately examine a piece of apple with its anterior tentacles, its down-turned optic tentacles and with its lips. It may now commence to feed, its activity being accompanied by powerful and rapid dorsal body waves that bring a watery secretion from the external surface of the head and cervical region into the feeding area, There is some evidence for suggesting that each snail may have a cycle of feeding activities, viz. the ingestion and communition of food that is then defecated without, or with very little digestion; the ingestion of soil - and some food - followed by digestion and defecation; and, finally a period (?one night) of little intake of food followed by a day when the faecal string consists of material from the digestive gland. There may be a 3-day cycle, that raises problems in the feeding of these animals."

So basically, it's likely that (in GALS at least) there's a digestive cycle that takes several (possibly 3) days, where they'll eat food one day and then poop it out mostly or totally undigested, then a day where they'll eat soil/substrate and possibly some food and poop it out digested, and then a period (possibly of one day but maybe longer) where they eat no or little food, then a day when their poop "consists of material from the digestive gland". I think many of us have noticed that our snails don't eat food every day and seem to have times when their poop is mainly or entirely substrate, and I've personally seen my snails poop weird slimy mucusy stuff on occasion (digestive gland material??), so this would certainly explain that.

This also explains why substrate must not be changed regularly (and why tanks should not be cleaned too much of poop and old food) - the snails NEED to eat substrate with bacterial flora as part of a normal digestion cycle, as we can see from the next part of the text...

"It also raises the question of the animal's possible need for regular ingestion of soil flora and fauna together with rotting food material. In one useful but hazardous experiment a vivarium was provided with double-sterilized soil, all surface soil and faeces were removed 3 times weekly and the loss replaces with more sterilized soil. The first sign of trouble was a cessation of oviposition in a formerly actively reproducing population of mixed ages. In 3 weeks the snails then ceased to feed and became lethargic and, in the following month, 13 out of 24 snails died. At this point the experiment was terminated!"

Anyway, that's all a lot of words without really giving any kind of answer to your actual question, but I thought it was interesting, showing that they may have some kind of digestive cycle - so in terms of constipation, it's possible that it could be the timeperiod in the cycle where they are not ingesting food, prior to pooping "digestive gland material", and for some reason this part of the cycle is taking longer than usual? I think it would take more scientific studies looking at this in detail before we'd really have any idea why something like that would happen unfortunately. But the idea that they have a cycle of digestion that takes days is definitely interesting in the context of things like constipation in snails.

BTW, if you're interested, you can read "The Life of Achatinidae in London" here: www.petsnails.co.uk/docs/Nisbet_1974_Presidential_Address.pdf

There is also info on the digestive systems of molluscs here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digestive_system_of_gastropods

And a very small, basic bit of info on the "digestive gland" / hepatopancreas here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatopancreas

[Selena]

Hi Etana,

how is mr Taaveni doing?
I realy hope he get better. I recognise the way of refuse food you discribed. only touch with his mouth/tentakles all the time, without eating anything. Very frustrating.
I had put some soft food (soaked fishflakes ore something) on his mouth, it was a trigger to start to eat again. Maybe you can try it, but i have no idea if its helpfull for longer term.

[etana]

Thanks for the interesting read, MC! I particularly enjoyed the super detailed descriptions of snail actions.

Selena, thank you. He's hanging there, not much worse, not much better, but weird things happen - in fact today he sat on top of Halonen's shell for a very long time, they communicated with eye stalk patting, and when I threw a slice of sweet potato at them, Taavetti took a few very greedy mouthfuls of it! That's not much, he still refuses to eat normally but maybe being near his partner helped a little. I don't know. I'll keep trying to feed him, maybe smear something on his face too.

[Selena]

fortunately he had eat at least a few big mouthfulls. Hopefully he gets better!

[etana]

Thanks Selena! I've seen him eat a few mouthfuls today again, by himself, after interacting with the others.

Funny thing is, if he sleeps in full view, in the evening the others will go and pat him with eye stalks till he awakens. I don't know if they just miss him or if they're also encouraging him to move and eat. Either way he does eat a little after that happens, so it can't be all bad. Plus my snails are totally nocturnal so he always gets a good daily beauty sleep.

[Selena]

AAAAH, thats a sweet situation. I love that special interactions. And
what ever it may be, it seems to result in something postive, isnt it?

How is he doing now?

[etana]

Yes, it's nice! I always love how snails pat each other with their eyes, the touch is so gentle that if they pat me the same way, I don't even feel it on my skin unless it's my big mama Halonen. And they feel it through the shell, wow.

Taavetti's still about the same, thanks for asking - he sleeps till someone wakes him up, then he eats a few big mouthfuls of whatever is near, goes back to sleep, and later poops a bit. His poops are mostly dark so he must be eating some soil too. I last saw him nibbling at a pumpkin seed, he rasped the green skin off of it and that was it.

I had him on my hand the other day, and despite the tiny appetite, his suction is still very strong, and he's not losing weight that I could tell. He's also stopped trying to grow the shell once again, but will nibble a little bit at cuttlebone. I wonder if he's just, uh, I don't know, having a less active period?! After all his gut IS doing its basic job, only he eats and poops very little compared to normal. He reacts well to the other snails and since that time when I freaked out when he was in super deep sleep, that kind of thing hasn't happened again. I'm of course still keeping an eye on him, but he's not getting worse *knocks wood* so I also try not to worry too much.

[etana]

Slow, slow progress is made. Taavetti's poops are getting a little bit bigger, and yesterday he woke up in the evening without anyone patting him (or me bugging him), that's the first time in a long time. He hangs out at the warm end of the tank the most.

I still don't see him sit at food taking his sweet long time to eat, and his poops are dark so it looks like he's mostly eating soil on top of the few mouthfuls he has of actual food. So something's still certainly off. Just in case he's looking for new gut bacteria, I've been pretty lazy with cleaning up the others' poop unless it's really awful.

[etana]

Taavetti is better! Up until yesterday he was the same as last time I wrote, sleeping lots, pooping a bit and waking up when he got eye stalk pats, but this morning I woke up to him bulldozing some decorations and looking for food. He's now been slowly eating (spirulina smoothie and sweet potato) for a couple hours! The first small bit of sweet potato he had, he chased about 5 babies off of it and even ate the skin. Like "MOVE! I'm hungry!!" lol not fair to the babies, but I gave them a new slice. I'm so happy!!

Also I'm spotting little yellow shelled babies among the very stripey ones. Must be mini Taavettis. A good thing I have room these days!

[mangoandlemon]

That's wonderful!

[Selena]

Hi Etana,

Apologize for late respons, i'm so happy he got better!! The day he started to eat a lot must be fantastic after all the time he nearly didn't eat.
One of my Immaculata's showed similar symptoms as Taavetti did, it took a few week. Limp body, inactive, not eating, small soil poo much sleeping. I actually thought she was going to die, because she acted very ill and limp,she only touched the food and feld a sleep all the time during doing that.
Finally her poo's only contained soil and after a few soil poo's, she suddenly got very active and began to eat lots of foods for hours. Today, she is still doing very well and eggs are developing in her shell.
Now i had read about Taavetti did a similair thing. Maybe they could heal them selves by eating the soil? Maybe there was some kind of obstruction in their guts?
But he was pregnant? You knew that? or is it a surprise? You have pictures, i'm very curious. i can't wait to have some eggs from my yellow snails as well, they are so cute.
You wrote before about a deformed egg if you looke through the breathinghole. Should that be the eggs that hatched lately?
like i wrote, I have Rodatzi's as well (Taavetti is a Rodatzi, isn't it?)and two of them have also something that looks like a deformed egg/eggs if you look though the breathing hole. (its much bigger than a normal egg, its shiny and white-grey) I remembered you writing about it when i discovered it. I'm wondering now: does Taavetti still have that deformed egg, or is it gone after laying his eggs"?
Maybe its just how a pregnant rodatzi looks like?

Anyway: i'm very glad Taavetti is doing well

[etana]

Thanks Mango!

And Selena, wow, thank you too, this is very interesting that you've observed such similar things in your rodatzi! We might be on to something here!!

Yes Taavetti is a rodatzi with a nice brown foot, very cute and a great character. He is in a deep burrow now but I will check his breathing hole in the evening for the weird egg-like thing, and I'll post pictures and answer all your questions when I can (I am writing this on my phone, as the only working computer is taken).

And that wasn't a delayed reply at all Selena! I think I'm going to be the delaying one as we have shortage of computers...

[Zorst]

Taavetti is better!!!! YAYYYYYYYYYY!!!!

So glad to hear it, and great to hear about all he baby snails. The Immac's here gave me a great surprise and I now have a very large herd of baby Immac's.

They hid there clutches of eggs under the flower pot where all the snails sleep so it was somewhat of a surprise to find all these baby snails everywhere. The bedding under the flower pot remained hard packed hence I didn't think they would bury them there especially as they were digging in the loose deep bedding at the other end of the tank.

Anyway its all great fun and games in the snail tanks here.

From the 2nd clutch of Bulldozers eggs one little dark baby bulldozer hatched, he's currently in a tub with a load of baby Flammea, which have also been busy egg laying.

As for computers my laptop battery died on me so I'm trying to figure out a borrowed one, hence not being around for a few days.

Zorst

[Selena]

@ etana, i saw the egg look a like things in two of my rodatzis, not the albopicta.

@ zorst, congratulations with all the surprise babies. i have baby immaculata's as well!! my thirst ones, they are so big comparing to fulicas,and its easy to see the difference. Their shells are more round an a golden glow, very nice. what kind of immaculata's do you have?

[etana]

Oops, Selena, sorry, I will edit my post. That's what I get for replying with my phone where I don't see the thread above, and get distracted by something while writing. (Longer reply with pics still coming! I'm very excited about this, I'd thought that Taavetti had these problems and things because the lid fell on him in the autumn, but now it looks like it's not that. )

Also Zorst, congrats for the babies! Sneaky snails, laying exactly where you thought they wouldn't!  

[Selena]

Mar 9, 2015 18:46:22 GMT etana said:

Oops, Selena, sorry, I will edit my post. That's what I get for replying with my phone where I don't see the thread above, and get distracted by something while writing. (Longer reply with pics still coming! I'm very excited about this, I'd thought that Taavetti had these problems and things because the lid fell on him in the autumn, but now it looks like it's not that. )

Also Zorst, congrats for the babies! Sneaky snails, laying exactly where you thought they wouldn't!  

It isn't a big disaster, i just want you to know its a rodatzi. I think its relevant because its a similarity as well!

Two different snailspecies are involved: Two of my rodatzis have the egg things and the Immaculata showed many similair symptoms as Taavetti did before he got better.

I'm curious how the deformed egg of mr Taavetti looked like and if its gone after he layed his eggs.

[etana]

It's good that you made sure I understood! The sleepiness, limpness, not eating etc symptoms and the "egg" have been bothering me so it's good to at least hear that someone else is seeing the same things happen.

Okay, here comes my big reply with pictures! But before I get to that there's one little update: I don't know how I missed the eggs as I just cleaned up and stirred all around the other day, but there's a new pile of very small fulica babies on the soil right now. Someone must have laid them last night, to have them immediately hatch. Weird. It wasn't Taavetti as he was in a burrow all night, but Halonen is sleeping in a bath tub making all kinds of wet noises. Hmmmmmm.

Anyway. Here's an old pic of Taavetti with his "egg":

I knew he'd had a fling with Halonen, but I wasn't sure if he was pregnant, because inside Halonen I knew I saw egg clutches, but inside Taavetti was just this strange thing for a long time! If this is what a pregnant rodatzi looks like, then that's funny since a pregnant standard fulica looks so different.

You were right though Selena, it IS gone now. I looked and looked for it today. He does have a very small round thing deep inside there, but it looks nothing like earlier. He was very unwilling to let me take a picture of his breathing hole so this is the best I got, but from the different angles and all you can easily see how much bigger the thing is in the first photo.


Then my fulica babies, one with stripes and one with a yellow shell. They have so much baby spots that it's kinda hard to tell, plus I didn't find the stripiest baby I have seen, but anyway:


The yellow one had spirulina yesterday, heh. 

I also checked my Tauno. He's rodatzi-ish coloured, he's not pure bred so he has a yellow shell and a silver body. He didn't have anything interesting inside his breathing hole. 


As for the soil eating: I know snails need to eat a bit of poop and soil to keep their gut bacteria in balance, and that's why you must not sterilise the soil if you can possibly avoid it. So I wouldn't be surprised if a snail who had an actual gut problem went ahead and ate more soil to heal himself.

If I recall correctly, Taavetti binged on soil when he moved in with me last summer. Ewert the Tiger ate everyone's every single poop for a while after he arrived, and although it IS quite common Tiger snail behaviour to eat poop, he does it much less now. I think he was adjusting to the new environment, and maybe he also had been kept too clean before so he really wanted new bacteria. 

For a last note, I'm really happy your Immac who had the similar symptoms as Taavetti got better. Taavetti is eating right now too, has been since he was in my photo, his appetite is great now. It makes me smile so much, he was eating so little for such a long time! He also got some kisses from Tauno, but that's another story.

[Selena]

 Hi Etana,

Thanks for your clear, long reply with all the pictures. The egg thing isn't the same as the eggs my rodatzi's have. Their egg things are much bigger and almost fill the hole area of the breathinghole.
But i do recognise the egg thing Taavetti had. I have a few jadatzis (semi-adult)and immaculata that have/had a similar thing. It seems to be a pre-state of eggs.When my immaculata showed the fenomena, a few days later it was replaced by real egg looking eggs, and again a few days later, she layd eggs. And quess what, it was the particular immaculata that had been ill like Taavetti. I remember, the symptoms manifest at the same time as the egg thing could be seen. When it changed to real eggs, the immaculata recovered completely.
The Jadatzis also have something that looks like that. The dark spot/stripe on one of the egggs (on your photo) might be a vena, i saw it moving on the ritm of the hearth beat. (did you saw that?) It could be a vena to provide the developing eggs nutriens and oxygen?? it seems most likely to me, because the eggs could not develope without any connection with the mother snail.
And why its not visible in each pregnant snail? Because of the individual anatomy, some snails have a bigger breathinghole others do and some snails keep their eggs more deep in the shell, or the visible area though the breatinghole changed when a shell gets bigger. A half grown shell with a relative big breathing hole showes more of the total volume of the shell and increase the change you see interesting gut parts that are not visible at other snails.

Cute little baby snails! They do have many spots! Maybe its better not to count all the spots , it seems so much work!!

or the number of dots is your way to distinguish them from each other?? But there are suddenly more little snails hatched ? I have red somewhere, i very rare cases if a snail waits to long with laying the developed eggs, they could hatch very fast and even hatch before they layed. It depends on the specie if this could happen. If eggs regulary hatch fast, it could happen if the snail wait to long. I don;t know if this could happen with a rodatzi, but it can happen with an immaculata and for an A. zanzibarica is it even usually.
But i don't now, i'm just analyse it..

[etana]

Ohhh! Thanks very much Selena, this is SO interesting!! I don't recall seeing the dark spot on the egg move, but that doesn't mean it didn't, heh. What you say makes a lot of sense to me and I think I'll be less worried next time I see this happen.

Lol yes I totally know which baby is which from the number of spots, "That's the one with 102 white spots and 49 black ones"... Oh goodness. I'm just glad I don't actually have to. I'll wait till they're a little bigger and hope that I can tell them apart at that point!

Halonen is a standard coloured Fulica, but anyway, poor mom if she had to actually give birth because she didn't find a place to lay the eggs! I wonder why not? There's certainly room, my coir layer is extra thick so my Tiger snails can dig their tunnels. Maybe she was afraid that the previous babies would eat her eggs...? I honestly have no idea.

I guess that might explain why she's been so passive since the day I found the pile of tiny babies. She spends most of her time resting in a warm bath. She's with me here at the computer right now, she's sitting on a plate having some spirulina smoothie that I prepared to cheer her up. She had a lot of calcium yesterday morning, then pooped a big white poop in the evening, and immediately ate most of the poop. Ew, lol, but at least she has appetite, heh.