First times snail owners

[mookiem]

Hello all,

I would never have imagined that I would be posting on a snail forum but here I am. Last Thursday morning on the way to work there was a small plastic tank in the middle of the road. I got out the car to move it to find 3 snails inside. The tank was damaged and the snails looked dead. I dumped the tank and snails on to my husband and went to work. My husband drained out the excess water (we had torrential rain and thunderstorms that night) and gave them some cucumber and lettuce. After 30 mins or so all three where up and about, munching through the veggies. Anyway, we reported this to the local pet shop and to the police but no one has come forward so we have now got 3 snails we know little about.

We have done as much research as we can, we have got them a bigger home, some peat free compost, some moss and a cuttlefish. They have been fed on lettuce and cucumber for the last few days as we have not been able to go shopping.

My first question is what are they exactly? We know they are snails 😏 any information would be great. Secondly we gave them a clean the other day and used one of my kids new toothbrush to gently clean the shells as it had caked on mud. I have noticed a bit of damage to the shells of two of them. One is a dent and the other is a crack. What should I do able it? Plus all the shells seem to be white on the ends? Is this a problem? What should we do to help them? One other thing the poo has been black since we got them but one of them had green poo yesterday, is this normal?

If this has worked there should be four pictures. Introducing Flash (with the boy in the blue pjs), Raisin (the one with the girl in the green school dress) and Zoom. All of them were before there shower. Also a picture of their new home, does this look ok?

My kids already love them and as pets go they seem reasonably easy to keep and they are definitely growing on me. I have sat there are nearly an hour just watching them lol

Any advice or information is gratefully received.

Thank you

Mookiem

[shaydeesnail]

I bet they are very glad to be rescued! Poor things, sounds like they were close to drowning.
At a guess I would say these are Achatina fulica- someone will be able to correct me if not. Fulica are very easy to take care of.
The dents and cracks should be heal by themselves as long as the mantle isn't showing, just handle them incredibly gently until healed as the loss of any shell fragments could be a problem. Feel free to post a close up of the damage if you are worried at all.
The shells often go white at the end as the snail ages, just due to wear and tear- although I've seen it happen prematurely in snails with a bad diet. You probably have 3 older snails.
Just a word of advice- when healthy, fulica breed like rabbits so you may find you have to freeze batches of eggs if you don't want to become overrun with them as they are difficult to sell. Although raising one batch from eggs will be very fun and educational for your kids.
Hope this helps a little, and feel free to ask any other questions. Enjoy your new friends, Im sure they are very grateful to you!

[etana]

Welcome to the forum, and well done!!

You have three large, handsome Achatina fulica there, if my eyesight serves me right. A little wear and tear in the shells, including white tips and little cracks, is usually not a problem. Snails will repair bothersome damage by themselves when given access to calcium, as you have done.

Snail poo is the color of what they have been eating lately. Black poo means they're eating soil, which is healthy for them and necessary for their digestion. The green is from the cucumber, and calcium will cause white poo. You will find that a varied diet of different coloured vegs will mean rainbow poo!

That being said, get them some good root vegetables such as carrots and sweet potato, wash them well and also preferably peel them before serving, and then you can look for our great thread called "What to feed/not feed your snails" (I'm on my phone so can't link, but it should be easy to locate). They will also appreciate a bit of cooked egg or ground beef now and then (1x/week or so) for extra protein. Snails won't eat themselves sick so you can offer as much at once as they will eat, and remove it when it gets too smelly for you - including the protein.

When they've settled down, remember to do egg checks! Go through the substrate at least once a week and put any eggs in the freezer. Fulica will lay dozens, big ones even a couple hundred eggs at once.

Good luck and ask for any clarifications that you need!

[etana]

Apparently me and Shaydee wrote simultaneously, I didn't notice until I hit the post button. Good point about the careful handling if the shell damage is bad.

[mookiem]

Thank you so much for you help. I know they were not planned pets but now they are with us we want to give them a chance of the best life possible.

Shopping day tomorrow so we definitely be getting some different veg/fruit for them. The kids will be very impressed with different colour poo lol

I will get good pictures of the damage at some point but we haven't handled them very much because we were scared of damaging them even more. However, having a closer look it looks reasonably superficial.

We plan on freezing eggs as we used to have stick insects (another accidental pet) and we had to do the same. Maybe at a later date we will let a couple hatch for the kids :-)

Again thanks for the advice.

Mookiem

[mookiem]

As promised here are a couple of pictures of the damage shells. The first one is a patch at the back that looks like it is flaky, the white patch is hard and it's looks like it's stopped flaking but left a patch of what looks like thin shell.

The second is a dent at the bottom of the shell. Its looks healed and it's feels hard to touch (touched it extremely carefully).

The third snail has a couple of marks but all look like they have healed.

Should I be worried about either? Should be be doing anything to help them?

Thank you again for your help.

Mookiem

[etana]

It seems to me that it's old damage that's healed pretty well, especially the first pic shows damage that used to be quite bad but the snail has done an impressive repair job. It's probably thicker than you think, adult fulica can have very thick and heavy shells.

I don't think you need to do anything extra there, just normal, mindful handling and tank decorating (no rocks, etc). 

[mookiem]

Thank you so much for your reassurance.

That makes me feel so much better, the poor snails. Just hope they are happier now.

Thanks

Mookiem

[blackscorpion]

No advice here, just want to say: wow you are superb first snail keepers! You're doing great!!

And yeah, search for eggs every week and freeze the eggs. I have garden snails, but have to do so too. 1 time I thought to let them hatch. Suddenly had 101 additional snails!! Not recommended...

[Elesari]

Wow what a story! Poor snailies, they are going to be sooo much happier with you. The set up looks fantastic. What moss are you using in your set up may I ask?

[mookiem]

Jun 13, 2018 14:43:22 GMT Elesari said:

Wow what a story! Poor snailies, they are going to be sooo much happier with you. The set up looks fantastic. What moss are you using in your set up may I ask?

We use Komodo 100% Natural substrate. You buy a small block and them put it in water and it expands.