horrr0r
Achatina achatina
Posts: 75 
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Post by horrr0r on Jun 25, 2015 14:45:59 GMT
New GALS I got from neighbor's garden. Juveniles have poor quality shells (faded, dull, deep growth lines, appearing thick, no dark/light contrast, etc... looks like an old man's flaky toenail lol), adult has beautiful shell but the more recent growth of the shell is poor quality. Also most of them have chipping around the aperture (lip is broken off). However they are ignoring their calcium. I've tried calcium supplements, oyster shell, limpet shell, crab claw shell, old empty snail shell, coral, and chalk. Haven't gotten cuttlefish bone yet but they're ignoring everything else. They have been rasping at plastic, flowerpot, and one even on its own shell! What do I do to improve their shell quality and make them eat calcium?
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Post by Liguus on Jun 25, 2015 15:15:41 GMT
Cuttlebone is definitely the preferred method. Shells and coral are too hard for land snails to be interested in rasping, and supplements can often be over-injested. If they still are picky about the cuttlebone what you could do is smear some food on it (like wet dog food or mashed berries), that will attract them to it and eventually they should start eating it too.
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Zorst
Achatina tincta
Posts: 734
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Post by Zorst on Jun 26, 2015 6:29:09 GMT
Yeah I'd 2nd that, cuttle bone is much preferred calcium source. You can buy it cheaply enough online or at the pet shop.
Dried fish food slightly dampened and rubbed on things works well as a way to get snails to introduced to eating new things and some dark green leaves are another source of calcium, if you get dandelions growing wild most snails love theses also cabbage and broccoli.
As a protein source mashed unseasoned hard boiled or scrambled eggs most snails seem to find hard to resist my GALS all love it. Sweet potato / yams they also like a lot served in thin slices. This also helps strengthen shell growth as it helps strengthen the snail. I also feed cooked fish but again not salted and unseasoned and meat.
If you get cuttle bone off the beach you have to boil it a lot of time really well in fresh clean water repeatedly and keep rinsing it in fresh clean water to remove the salt. Then you have to let it dry totally before feeding it to your snails.
Zorst
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