Possible (likely) death, want to learn what happened if poss

[GailTheSnail]

Last night when I let my snails out for their daily bath/slime around time I noticed one of them didn't look right- like the body was shrunken, way too small for the shell.

I thought maybe he's just dehydrated since they'd had plenty of food so he couldn't be hungry, so I made him his own bath but he is one that doesn't really love the water so I didn't keep him in there long, just made sure he absorbed some.
He didn't seem interested in playing much either, and when he retracted in his shell there was no mantle, like I could still see his little face, if that makes sense? Anyways it's about 15 hours later and this is how I found him:


I've never seen a healthy snail look like that, ever... and his foot looks discolored, plus no movement whatsoever. I put him in a little box so I can check for any changes but I think it's unfortunately safe to assume he's gone.
He's been living with 20 other garden snails I've had for over a month now and they're all healthy and happy as could Be, so I think this may just be one of those sad unfortunate things that happens sometimes but I want to make sure it's not due to something I could have noticed and and prevented so if anyone knows what it means when their bodies look very narrow and small inside their shell please let me know- any info appreciated thank you 😊 🐌 ❤️

[kaidashade]

That does look a lot like a dead snail I'm afraid. The retraction thing seems to be something that happens but from what I've seen researching it- it's happened to some of my GALS- nobody knows for sure what causes it or how to prevent it.

[cepaeahelix]

Dead snails smell terrible. If it has no smell at all it's probably not dead.

[dinowcookie]

This is how my Oro passed away too. However, my snail Hazel has been retracted like this before and after a lot of love and care she's fine now.

What I did with Hazel is try to tempt her to come out by dripping water, blowing into the shell opening, warming her up and cooling her down until after a lot of effort she'd come out.
I tried the same with Oro, didn't work for Oro.

I bathed Hazel in green tea like suggested here on this forum, made sure she had food near. I think she was being bugged by mites, I took any visible mites off her. Now she's a normal happy snail who seems to have recovered from being ill.

Anyway, perhaps you can save your snail with a lot of effort, perhaps I was just lucky with Hazel.
You can read the topic about Hazel and her recovery here: petsnails.proboards.com/thread/16681/hazel-advice

[astana]

If he doesn't react at all to any pokes directly to his foot, he's probably dead.

[GailTheSnail]

Thank you so much for all the help and suggestions and support I put him in a cigarette box in the cup holder of my car and after six hours I opened it to find no movement and bright yellow fluid covering the box, so when I got home I dug a hole in the yard and buried him with his snaily brothers and sisters nearby.

It happened (as in, him dying) while he was in the box he shares with all of my other snails and they're all fine, so it looks to be a sad, but fortunately isolated incident. RIP little one

[footloose]

I wonder what the bright yellow fluid was. An infection?

[dinowcookie]

Did the yellow stuff look any like this?
I found it in my tank a while ago, still no clue what it is. But now that I think of it it was right before Oro passed so perhaps it has something to do with it? I don't know :S

[GailTheSnail]

Sept 27, 2017 9:47:29 GMT dinowcookie said:

Did the yellow stuff look any like this?
I found it in my tank a while ago, still no clue what it is. But now that I think of it it was right before Oro passed so perhaps it has something to do with it? I don't know :S

Oh wow that's crazy! No not like that it's an electric yellow sort of residue that you only notice if they're on top of something lightly colored. I think it's the fluid the body releases after it passs because I unfortunately had another death yesterday (RIP Raspy. Snail death and human death, not a good day) and I had it sitting on a tissue for about 30 min hoping it would wake up and when I went to check on him I saw the bright yellow stuff looks like mucus in your pic definitely something else

[picklepies]

In so sorry to hear about your snails, I hope you're doing OK! The liquid seems to be something that occurs when a snails dies of retraction, no idea of the science, I've just noticed any snails I have had who has died this way let's off liquid very soon after death.
Unfortunately there seems little than can be done for a complete fix, thee are methods that can get the snail to come out for a bit and eat, but they always seem to retract again
I doesn't seem that this is caused by any type of infection though, so hopefully your other snails will be fine.