Feeding and making snail food :]

[shaydeesnail]

;D
My Cepaea Nemoralis have shown that they are quite fussy eaters, and for some reason they have decided they will only eat fresh food if I mash it up with soaked oats, can this hurt them at all?

I know they aren't supposed to eat some things like that, but I've fed bigger snails on this before and they also seemed to enjoy it... when I was a kid I used to put a soggy slice of bread outside and watch all the snails eat it. I wouldn't give my snails bread now, because of the sugar and salt in it.

It's not very practical for me to feed food that's going off, as sometimes I have to go away for a couple of nights and while fresh food will only just be going off when I'm back, already old food will be mouldy :/

Also, when I've found a selection of foods that they like, I was planning on making them a complete food and had a few questions about that, as I've seen some people on this site do that for their snails.

Can I give them a (dilute) multivitamin? Like the one you can put in small mammals water?

Is gelatin okay for snails? Is it of any benefit to them? Does it freeze well?

Is it okay to put limestone powder in the food? (I've never used it before, so I'm not sure how it is usually administered anyway) If so, does it matter how much? (Within reason, I don't plan on feeding them a slightly green chalky block)

I see a lot of people say that they feed their snails goldfish flakes as a treat, is there any harm in putting it in their everyday food? Will it benefit them at all?

Apart from the vegetables/fruit that I plan to put in after a little experimentation to see which ones they like, do you have any other recommendations on ingredients?

Links to any recipes that you have seen would be greatly appreciated too
I want super healthy snails, that can make me super healthy baby snails!

[pinkunicorn]

Multivitamin in even diluted human doses could be poisonous to snails. Some vitamins are poison to humans as well in large enough doses and can be harmful as vitamin pills even in lower doses, as the latest research on the subject has proven against all expectations. So based on that I wouldn't give human (or other animal) vitamins to snails. Too difficult to say what their particular metabolism needs and how much. Calcium we know they need, of course.

Maybe mash various nutritious vegetables with some soaked oats and soaked seeds, plus some powdered cuttle or limestone? Dark, leafy greens, pumpkin seeds, sweet peppers, sweet potato, tomato flesh, carrot... berries are high in nutrients, too, so maybe some pesticide free blueberries or blackberries. The darker and the more colourful generally means more nutritious. Fish flakes or tortoise food too, if the species is omnivorous. Such a mix should provide what a snail needs in natural form without risking overdosing.

You probably can freeze such a mash for a few weeks btw, as long as it is frozen straight away. Freezing preserves nutrients pretty well so it should be almost as good as the fresh thing. I'm thinking of little cubes of snail food that can be thawed when needed... of course hoping that the snailies like it too. Will need to test this myself!

[vallery]

That is a great Idea to test out pinkunicorn, freezing mashed food in cubes to thaw out later. I make a mixture of mashed english cucumber and powdered brown egg shells for my baby cepaeas powdering the egg shells is easy enough I use a mortar and pestal but mashing fresh raw english cucumber every day can be a real pain. If I tried your idea for my babies I would use an icecube tray, and after I melted a cube I would have to drain it though so the little ones don't drown in the juices. But would alot of nutrients and calcium be lost in the draining? Something to think about.

[axoloa]

Dec 13, 2011 23:41:22 GMT vallery said:

That is a great Idea to test out pinkunicorn, freezing mashed food in cubes to thaw out later. I make a mixture of mashed english cucumber and powdered brown egg shells for my baby cepaeas powdering the egg shells is easy enough I use a mortar and pestal but mashing fresh raw english cucumber every day can be a real pain. If I tried your idea for my babies I would use an icecube tray, and after I melted a cube I would have to drain it though so the little ones don't drown in the juices. But would alot of nutrients and calcium be lost in the draining? Something to think about.

lol, I used to do my snail mix in ice cube trays in the frezer to ;D it would definitly lose some neutrients but not to much, its mostly just plain old water and about 85% of the neutriens stay preserved in the flesh. 15% is not much to lose when you consider that just simply by giving them mushrooms instead of cucumber would lower the percentage of neutrients by about 50% right away I know their was no mention of mushroom in all this but its just an example Sometimes its actualy beneficial to lose some water anyway because many snails fill themselfs up on the water and theirfor eat less anyway

[coyote]

I would advise not to give any kind of human vitamin, nor gelatin.

Soaked oats would be okay, as long as they are well-soaked. Same with bread, make sure it is well-soaked, and only a small amount, and not all the time.

I give moistened fish flakes once a week. My snails won't eat them more often; they really prefer the fruit and veg, and fish flakes just sit there on the substrate if offered all the time.

I do recommend hulled, unsalted pumpkin seeds (either whole or ground up). They are a natural worm repellant and a source of protein for your snails. I keep a couple of whole seeds in the tank for mine (chiefly aspersas; larger species may need more than just a couple of seeds), and they nibble away on them little by little.

[pinkunicorn]

Ahh nice to hear that the freezing idea works in practise! And yeah, 80-85% is what I'd estimate to be the nutrient content in the thawed food, which is not bad at all considering how quickly nutrients deteriorate in fresh veggies. It probably doesn't matter to snails so much, either, because they eat rotting and decomposing food in nature. Actually I suspect their bodies are specialised in getting as much nutrients out of food as possible given their natural diet.

Mushrooms would be a good addition to the mix, btw. They got plenty of protein.