How to tell if your eggs are developing?

[snerdahmik]

My cornu aspersum recently laid eggs.

_{A few weeks ago, I discovered a little tiny bit of mold on a veggie that appeared overnight. So I removed the food and the dirt it was touching. Then a few days later, tiny traces of mold was growing on the food again. The snails weren't touching their food that often, and the mold probably liked the moisture. After a third time, I figured that the mold just wouldn't go away unless I did a complete tank change. So I moved the snails into a new tank with new substrate, food, and washed all of their hides. No more mold! But that wasn't the issue.}

I gently picked out each egg and washed them with mist to make sure they had no mold bacteria on them. Then I placed them in a small container with some coconut coir, buried them, and moistened it. Was this good? I had to remove them because of the mold, but I tried my best not to hurt them.. will they still hatch? I've just left them alone in their little jar. It has air holes.

[snerdahmik]

I noticed the eggs were very squishy. I tried my best not to apply any pressure at all to the eggs when I grabbed them. Have I crushed the babies inside?

[littlegoldsnail]

I honestly really wouldn’t know, mine where fairly soft and squishy when there where fertile. The ones of mine that hatched where buried, the eggs that hatched I actually didn’t find them till they where in the process of hatching.

[snerdahmik]

Dec 1, 2019 1:37:13 GMT littlegoldsnail said:

I honestly really wouldn’t know, mine where very soft and squishy when there where fertile. The ones of mine that hatched where buried, I actually didn’t find them till they where in the process of hatching.

Nooooo!!!!!!!! Poor baby!!!! That means my eggs are probably fertile.. That's how mine are.. I can only see the development because some are up against the glass of the container.  

[littlegoldsnail]

My snails actually laid a lot of eggs over the summer, I would have to take them out every week and turn up the substrate for eggs, usually finding at least a clutch or two. As sad as it was, I had no place for the eggs or more snails and helix aspersas are invasive so I only had three hatch and disposed of the rest... snif snif, that was hard.
Sadly two of the babies where lost when the enclosure flooded from an unexpected heavy rain (It was very unexpected and by the time a went to go put the enclosure under some cover it was half full of water).

[littlegoldsnail]

Dec 1, 2019 1:40:57 GMT snerdahmik said:

Dec 1, 2019 1:37:13 GMT littlegoldsnail said:

I honestly really wouldn’t know, mine where very soft and squishy when there where fertile. The ones of mine that hatched where buried, I actually didn’t find them till they where in the process of hatching.

Nooooo!!!!!!!! Poor baby!!!! That means my eggs are probably fertile.. That's how mine are.. I can only see the development because some are up against the glass of the container.  

what’s so sad?

[snerdahmik]

Dec 1, 2019 1:45:51 GMT littlegoldsnail said:

My snails actually laid a lot of eggs over the summer, I would have to take them out every week and turn up the substrate for eggs, usually finding at least a clutch or two. As sad as it was, I had no place for the eggs or more snails and helix aspersas are invasive so I only had three hatch and fed the rest of the eggs to our chickens... snif snif, that was hard.
Sadly two of the babies where lost when the enclosure flooded from an unexpected heavy rain (It was very unexpected and by the time a went to go put the enclosure under some cover it was half full of water).

I'm going to deal with overpopulation pretty soon, too. My mom doesn't want me to freeze the eggs because she thinks that it's abortion. She wants me to raise them and release them into the environment. I feel really horrible for hurting them, because I love them so much, but I just can't raise hundreds of eggs. It's always hard having to do that. I feel horrible for what I have to do later on. I told her that the hatchlings would eat each other once they were born and that only a few would survive, but really, I have to feed some to my decollate snail. I have no other choice, and it makes me feel awful. There are over fifty eggs.. I can't take care of that many snails, there's nowhere near enough space and food.

[snerdahmik]

Dec 1, 2019 1:50:54 GMT littlegoldsnail said:

Dec 1, 2019 1:40:57 GMT snerdahmik said:

Nooooo!!!!!!!! Poor baby!!!! That means my eggs are probably fertile.. That's how mine are.. I can only see the development because some are up against the glass of the container.  

what’s so sad?

I'd love to raise them all if I could. I can't stand having to kill them. It feels unforgivable.

[littlegoldsnail]

If you really think about it, feeding some of the eggs to another carnivorous snail is really just the circle of life. In nature, not nearly so many would actual hatch. It would naturally happen, and eggs should be part of a healthy diet for the Decollate snail. Abortion is very very different, if you classified them in the same category, it would be raising snails to the same level as people, which is not right either.

God said that we are to be good stewards of our animals,
but he also said that we have dominion over them. I believe that there is a balance somewhere.