daniele
Achatina immaculata
Posts: 245
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Post by daniele on Nov 15, 2019 11:51:49 GMT
Goodmorning, my cornu aspersum will face this year her first winter in adult form (i found her on february in the artichokes, she was a baby and so she spent her first winter inside the house).
Her terrarium has only a cover made of net , as a lot of aspersum live around my house, so i'm trying to let her live in the most natural way is possible (in fact i free her every night), and I want her to hibernate this winter since I've read many times that they will live longer if they hibernate, and they need these resting periods in order to recover some energies...
Now the outside temperatures are lowering at abt 10° to 5° , and she's moving much slower than usual, but still looks active; the biggest difference in behaviour, is that recently with the cold she's exploring many places around the balcony in which she's normally not interested in warmer months. This led me to think that maybe her house is not warm enough...maybe in nature she would find a more repaired shelter? in the coldest nights im putting back the original lid of the tank but still leave her in the balcony...
Shall I bring her inside in your opinion? will she be able to hibernate if i take her inside ?? (in fact she hibernated for two months last spring)
Will she be harmed by these temperatures?
PS: anyway ill take her inside house in december when it will get below zero, but I d wish her to hibernate before that moment, so she can enjoy a safe winter-sleep inside the house
thank so much to everybody in advance
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daniele
Achatina immaculata
Posts: 245
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Post by daniele on Nov 16, 2019 13:24:13 GMT
UPDATES: yesterday night she was clearly searching for a warm place, and when i checked her last time around 3am, she fell asleep with her head fully inside the lower gap between the balcony door and the pavement (she woke up at sunset around 4,30 pm so around 3 am was awake by 11 hours already).. so at this point I woke her up by misting some water on her , then I took her inside the house to sleep.. I put her in a room with open window, turned the heating system off, and closed the door, so the temperature in the room remained around 12° to 14° in the night, and she had her original lid placed back on her house. Shall I let her stay there in your opinion? will she be able to hibernate?
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Post by snerdahmik on Nov 19, 2019 17:27:52 GMT
I think she would be alright. Do you use Fahrenheit or Celsius? Just provide her things inside her house to hide underneath, like some leaf litter (be sure to rinse it off) or one of those hides made for small animals to hide under. You can find those at the pet store.
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daniele
Achatina immaculata
Posts: 245
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Post by daniele on Nov 20, 2019 13:17:41 GMT
thanks for your reply! I use Celsius , so temperatures are not too cold yet in fact. Yes she has many shelters inside her house , some bought in pet stores and some build by me! she uses them to sleep also for some days continously sometimes... expecially one that she likes most, as it was her original little house (the first i build for her last year).. I will enclose a pic of how the terrarium looks from outside! I am concerned because she s never sleeping inside her shell recently, but at the same time she seemed to seek for warm places during recent days...  this is the terrarium (is in a room with open window now)  this is how she is sleeping recently (notable exception: the day before yesterday she finally slept retracted) PS: she slept like this many times during the year, but never for 2 weeks consecutive..) |
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Post by snerdahmik on Nov 20, 2019 16:19:26 GMT
When I moved my snails from Houston to Dallas, my snail slept like that a lot. I didn't know what was wrong with him, but I was really worried. So I emailed a malacologist who's studied aspersas before, and he said the snails he kept would act like that before eventually dying. It was barely 21C outside, but whenever I held my snail he was frigid. After keeping a heating lamp on his house for a few days, he was better. Based off my own experiences, I would say your snail is too cold.
I don't know what temperatures are fatal for aspersas, but some sources say once it drops below 15C they will slowly become ill.
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daniele
Achatina immaculata
Posts: 245
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Post by daniele on Nov 21, 2019 11:16:02 GMT
For what I have read, aspersas can bear temperatures as low as -5° celsius. In fact many aspersas live in my backyard and temperatures in the winter here always goes below zero, so they surely can survive somehow! I think it depends very much on where the single aspersa is from.. European populations are used to low temperatures in the winter and I've read they need them as they need to hibernate to save energies and live longer. Anyway your post made me think, that in fact Faitila is used to warmer temperatures as she was probably born in an indoor farm, and then spent her first winter inside the house and only started to live outside in the spring, so maybe for her would be better a bit warmer, but is only my thought and i need confirmations...
Concerning the fact that she sleeps like that, I've read several times (even in this forum in a post i cannot find now) that they do it when it is too moisture and when they feel too safe.. Here is raining continously from one month and humdity levels are between 80% and 100%.. But your sentence really scared me out, so i will open one new thread with her sleeping pic i think!
How is your snail now? did she recover?
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Post by snerdahmik on Nov 21, 2019 16:07:36 GMT
For what I have read, aspersas can bear temperatures as low as -5° celsius. In fact many aspersas live in my backyard and temperatures in the winter here always goes below zero, so they surely can survive somehow! I think it depends very much on where the single aspersa is from.. European populations are used to low temperatures in the winter and I've read they need them as they need to hibernate to save energies and live longer. Anyway your post made me think, that in fact Faitila is used to warmer temperatures as she was probably born in an indoor farm, and then spent her first winter inside the house and only started to live outside in the spring, so maybe for her would be better a bit warmer, but is only my thought and i need confirmations... Concerning the fact that she sleeps like that, I've read several times (even in this forum in a post i cannot find now) that they do it when it is too moisture and when they feel too safe.. Here is raining continously from one month and humdity levels are between 80% and 100%.. But your sentence really scared me out, so i will open one new thread with her sleeping pic i think! How is your snail now? did she recover? I'm sorry for scaring you! I don't really know what it means for sure, but that's what the malacologist told me. Heavy Weather is fine now! He's big and strong, and recently fathered a clutch of eggs. He started acting normal after I warmed him up and made the house drier. |
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daniele
Achatina immaculata
Posts: 245
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Post by daniele on Nov 22, 2019 10:59:18 GMT
For what I have read, aspersas can bear temperatures as low as -5° celsius. In fact many aspersas live in my backyard and temperatures in the winter here always goes below zero, so they surely can survive somehow! I think it depends very much on where the single aspersa is from.. European populations are used to low temperatures in the winter and I've read they need them as they need to hibernate to save energies and live longer. Anyway your post made me think, that in fact Faitila is used to warmer temperatures as she was probably born in an indoor farm, and then spent her first winter inside the house and only started to live outside in the spring, so maybe for her would be better a bit warmer, but is only my thought and i need confirmations... Concerning the fact that she sleeps like that, I've read several times (even in this forum in a post i cannot find now) that they do it when it is too moisture and when they feel too safe.. Here is raining continously from one month and humdity levels are between 80% and 100%.. But your sentence really scared me out, so i will open one new thread with her sleeping pic i think! How is your snail now? did she recover? I'm sorry for scaring you! I don't really know what it means for sure, but that's what the malacologist told me. Heavy Weather is fine now! He's big and strong, and recently fathered a clutch of eggs. He started acting normal after I warmed him up and made the house drier. No no, no need to apologize at all! I did appreciate your help a lot and thank you so much for all your advices!!! And thank God that Heavy Weather is ok now!!!!! very happy news!!! so you made me think that I will raise the temperature for her a bit, by closing a bit the window and let inside some warm...still hope she can hibernates! today she's sleeping buried!!! thank you so much! |
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Post by snerdahmik on Nov 23, 2019 16:08:38 GMT
How's she doing today?
Sleeping buried could be a good sign. I think I'd heard from someone else on the forum that their aspersum sleep buried in winter, but I may be wrong. I'll check to make sure.
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daniele
Achatina immaculata
Posts: 245
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Post by daniele on Nov 25, 2019 11:58:16 GMT
How's she doing today? Sleeping buried could be a good sign. I think I'd heard from someone else on the forum that their aspersum sleep buried in winter, but I may be wrong. I'll check to make sure. She seems fine thanks! from 21th to 23th she slept buried, and inside her shell (I'm sure as her shell was half out, and I could see she was attached to a wall too) and slept continously for 2 days and nights! then she woke up and had some baths and ate some food and calcium , and then went back to sleep! in fact i say she looks fine, as she slept during these recent drier days, and woke up again when heavy rains started yesterday... Today she s sleeping normally inside her shell, and outside is sunny... Also my other snails are following a similar "routine" these days and they all stay sleeping when the rain stops. I've read that snails need some longer sleeps sometimes, even when not hibernating, so im not disturbing her and just let her do what she feels like! I'll post some updatings next days! |
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