sick snails

[mike]

I got two snails who arent well. One is a 5cm achatina smithii. he always hides really far back in his shell and the shell is always toppled over. Also...this sounds strange but...his body looks too small for his shell.

The other snail is a 2cm achatina achatina spp.
he wont come out his shell, infact im not even sure he's alive. smells a bit, but usually theres little white things crawling on a dead snail.

maybe the substrate is too wet?

i put them both in some water...the smithii came out but the achatina hasnt....ahh im scared i dont want them to die

please help

mike

[Paul]

Hi Mike,

Check out this thread, coz I had identical problems:

petsnails.proboards3.com/index.cgi?board=problems&action=display&n=1&thread=1636&page=1

If the baby tiger is smelling it is dead. Also, about the little white things. The first time I saw them was on a dead snail sent to me so I wrongly assumed they were mites that were only to be found on dead snails. But I soon discovered that the mites are not exclusive to dead snails, check your soil and your other snails. Unless you're talking about little white maggots which would no doubt occur if a dead snail was left in the tank for flies to find it.

paul

[Emma]

Sad to hear about ur sick snails..

just a question.. are these the only snails thatu own?
do u keep them together or with other snails?

If u have other snails how does their health compare to the sick snails? Most snails have mites so it is important to clean the snails and their home lots to keep the population under control. In the wild the snail would have vast amount of habitat and therefore this would limit the extent to which parasites could build up.

Unless u have kept dead snails laying around for long periods it would be unlikely that u would find maggots in the snails. As paul said I think it is more likely that these are parasite. possibly escaping from the corpse to find a living host.

How long has ur tiger been inactive? if he has not come out of his shell for a long time he is either very sick, hibernating or dead.
if there is no seal its more likely he is dead. If he smells bad hes definitely dead.

As for ur other snail.. does he even come out of his shell and do u ever see him eating? it is possible that he has become dehydrated. A snail will lose a lot of its body weight through dehydration. A flaccid body would be another sign of this. though he may be in a dap tank dehydration could still be possible if he never comes out of his shell and doesnt eat, as they get a lot of moisture from their food. If he is coming out, try feeding him of soft mashed up food.. this will make it easier for him and possibly entice him to eat.

clean out ur tank. seperate these snails from any others. keep them in damp but not sodden substrate. slightly moist is generally preferred by most snails. give the snails a wash. check for mites in the breathing holes and on the body.

I really hope ur snails will survive and good luck with them. someytimes snails will die no matter how good ur care. Unfortunately there isnt much research on them so it is difficult to know what is wrong.

[mike]

well the baby tiger died. Im very sad. But I'm determined not to let the smithii die because I love that species and I only have two. I'll try to feed him something. Do you think I should move him to another tank? Im worried that this is just a sign that he's going to die soon. I can't let that happen I'll try to keep my room warm. But I dont know what else to do.

kind regards

mike

[Emma]

Hi Mike,

thats really sad to hear ur tiger died.. i lost one of my tigers recently, and i never knew what killed him.

as for ur other snail.. if he is with other snails I would move him to a seperate tank. All I can suggest is that u keep him warm, clean and perservere with getting him to eat. Try lots of varieties of food.. u might find something u can get him to take. Try porriage (without milk) I believe Correne used this on her sick snail and he ate it. Just dont give up on the little guy. fingers crossed he will pull through

[Paul]

Emma's advice about separating it from other snails, cleaning out all the tank and contents is the only thing you can do.

I tried the tank hotter, colder, wetter, drier. I've tried every type of food imaginable, I've even rubbed the Aloe vera gel from a leaf onto their chops (it is anti-viral and anti-fungus so I figured a little may be ingested).

But, I'm not sure how much good any of that did. I have been waking him up by spraying etc to make sure they were still alive and to get them out to try and eat. You can't do much more than that.

Mine died in the end, but my other ill one has seemed much, much better in the last 24 hours. He's weak but eating, including cuttlefish.

I'm not suggesting you replace it but don't worry about the smithii, Fredrik has just had some babies (not sure how many). When his computer is fixed. he'll no doubt be ready to sell them.

paul

[mike]

ok today the snail wasnt sooo far back in his shell and came out quite quickly when i put him in a tank of water. anjie suggested soaked oats, and he ate them!

I worked out that the problem is that his body is so weak he cant actually move. so i just have to put him on the oats to see if he gets better. can you suggest any other mushed-up food? he cudnt manage lettuce or cucumber, even though he wanted to.

i moved him to a much larger tank, with not such soaking soil. i hope this helps

i'll be optomistic. thats all i can be. im glad fredrik has some smithii.

kind regards

mike

[Emma]

Glad to hear that ur snail seems to be feeling a bit better..

Its possibly that as a result of sickness he went into hibernation gradually depleting his energy as he wasnt eating/recieving water..

I would keep up with the Oats.. make sure u watch ur snail at meal times. if a bath gets him out of his shell do it.. then put him directly onto the food. that means that he doesnt have so much of a distance to travel to food.Its important to preserve his energy so he has a chance to recover.

as for other food, I have heard that other members feed their snails chicken mass and hemp seed butter with great sucess. There is a recipe on the main part of the site on how to prepare hemp. I believe u can find it in most petshops in the bird section.
have u tried cooked or mashed vegetables. cooked foods would be more easily digested. if not keep with the porriage/oats and hopefully he will pick up. The main thing at this point is that he is eating. and oats are a complex carbohydate so are likely to provide quite a bit of energy.

I hope ur snails feels better soon
goodluck Emma ;-)

[bookitten]

A teacher had a snail like that... but he died
try and make him come out more, the longer he stays in the worse it is.

[mike]

what i've noticed is that his mantle is far back into his shell, so he has so strech his body out just to be out of the shell, and so can't move. He refuses to eat, but maybe he ate enough a few days ago, I'll try other mashed things, such as sweet potato. I can't think why this is happening recently...

[anjieburdett]

Arno's 2 margies have been sick since Wednesday and 2 of them died last night!! Whats going on with all these poorly snails??

Anjie,x.

p.s. they weren't the brixton ones, they were from BUGZUK.

[eric2]

have you tried crushing cuttlefish and mixing that with flour and water to form a paste? my snails love it, but i dont know if poorly snails will. You can also chop fruit and veg into tiny pieces and add them into the mix
hope your snail is better soon

eric

[Val]

Emma said that most snails have mites......does this mean that my baby ones will have mites? Where from?

Val

[anjieburdett]

I don't think that your baby snail will have mites Val.

Did they like the chicken moosh hehe.

Anjie,x.

[Val]

I smells very 'chickeny' doesn't it? Yes they seemed to like it, but to be absolutely honest I am wondering now if 'meaty' foods are such a good idea for snails, if snails ARE totally vegetarian then meat foods could prove disastrous........(BSE!!!! ) Just a gut feeling.

Val

[Emma]

haha most my snails I have recieved have had the regular mites.. i havent seen any on my dimidiata or tiger babies thou! the fulicas and the margies I got from bugzuk all had mites!

[Val]

Emma...........who or what is bugzuk!!

[Emma]

maybe its just a bugz uk thing.. i dunno!

[Emma]

bugz uk is a basically a guy called martin who sells snails and other invertibrates on the internet. his snails often die of unknown disease and he is extremly unhelpful

[Paul]

Chicken mash doesn't contain any meat at all. I checked with the manufacturers and got an ingredient list. Plus, that'd be like feeding chicken to chickens seeing as it is for laying hens.

Also, in the wild snails do eat some meat, if they come across a carcass they will eat some. That could even be a source of some parasites. Snails are also coprophageous and that has got to be worse.

[Arno]

Yes snails(and slugs) are the ultimate recyclers.

ps:I had to Google for that coprophageous word.....lol (it means dung eaters )

[Kevin]

emmachan said:

bugz uk is a basically a guy called martin who sells snails and other invertibrates on the internet. his snails often die of unknown disease and he is extremly unhelpful

Thanks for that...I had seen the bugzuk website and was considering ordering some inverts from the site, I'll avoid doing that now