Post by bucketsthemoth on Aug 3, 2016 0:50:38 GMT
I have a few questions about starting to care for pet slugs. I'm doing it for a science project, probably during the fall. It'll be more of a catch and release thing.
To give you more info, I'll be nabbing a few slugs from outside my house and around the area, so releasing them will probably be fine. I'm mostly worried about how to actually keep them alive for the project.
I want to separate them into groups. I'll be testing the effect of putting a small amount of milk in their water supply.
1. Is it safe to expose them to the milk? It'll be about 1/4 of a teaspoon of whole pasteurized milk per two cups of water and I'll be spritzing them with it every day. The goal is to see if it changes the pH level of their mucus and such, but I'm concerned about it souring and messing with the cleanliness of the tank or worse, injuring them.
2. I'll have 4 groups (2 exposed to milk, 2 not), separated by some kind of blocker. They'll be in the same tank, just separated. Will it freak them out to see other slugs through a clear pane or will they not question or react to it? I don't want them to be disoriented by seeing another habitat with fellow slugs in it and not being able to cross over.
3. What are the chances they will mate and when/how do I go about looking for eggs so I can log their exposure to milk if that kind of fiasco arises? I'll be keeping about 3 of them in the same group.
4. Will the slugs domesticate or lose some ability to survive in the wild? I don't want to be inhumane and get them used to receiving food sources too easily and then put them back into the wild all of a sudden. Am I now just forever stuck with being a slug breeder cause I'm okay with that and everything but that's a lot of commitment that I don't need in my life if it's not totally necessary.
5. How and what do I feed them? It's not very convenient for me to seek out and buy special slug food and there's no promises with vegetables and fruits that they won't have pesticides on them so I'm stuck between rinsing the stuff off really well with distilled water and hoping they eat moss and stuff I put in the tank.
6. How big of a tank do I need to keep a bunch of moss, dirt, and 12 slugs in total for about a year?
Any advice is needed. You don't even have to have owned pet slugs before I just need truthful info about these things and what will kill them so I can avoid that.
To give you more info, I'll be nabbing a few slugs from outside my house and around the area, so releasing them will probably be fine. I'm mostly worried about how to actually keep them alive for the project.
I want to separate them into groups. I'll be testing the effect of putting a small amount of milk in their water supply.
1. Is it safe to expose them to the milk? It'll be about 1/4 of a teaspoon of whole pasteurized milk per two cups of water and I'll be spritzing them with it every day. The goal is to see if it changes the pH level of their mucus and such, but I'm concerned about it souring and messing with the cleanliness of the tank or worse, injuring them.
2. I'll have 4 groups (2 exposed to milk, 2 not), separated by some kind of blocker. They'll be in the same tank, just separated. Will it freak them out to see other slugs through a clear pane or will they not question or react to it? I don't want them to be disoriented by seeing another habitat with fellow slugs in it and not being able to cross over.
3. What are the chances they will mate and when/how do I go about looking for eggs so I can log their exposure to milk if that kind of fiasco arises? I'll be keeping about 3 of them in the same group.
4. Will the slugs domesticate or lose some ability to survive in the wild? I don't want to be inhumane and get them used to receiving food sources too easily and then put them back into the wild all of a sudden. Am I now just forever stuck with being a slug breeder cause I'm okay with that and everything but that's a lot of commitment that I don't need in my life if it's not totally necessary.
5. How and what do I feed them? It's not very convenient for me to seek out and buy special slug food and there's no promises with vegetables and fruits that they won't have pesticides on them so I'm stuck between rinsing the stuff off really well with distilled water and hoping they eat moss and stuff I put in the tank.
6. How big of a tank do I need to keep a bunch of moss, dirt, and 12 slugs in total for about a year?
Any advice is needed. You don't even have to have owned pet slugs before I just need truthful info about these things and what will kill them so I can avoid that.