95% Shell Loss

[GailTheSnail]

8 days ago, one of my sweet babies had an accident and lost nearly her entire shell. I have never seen a snail live longer than a few days when this happens, but every day she looks better and better so I wanted to share this with you guys and see if anyone else has had this experience.

One thing I’ll note is her general attitude (I know that sounds silly to say about a snail but true snail moms/dads know what I mean!) is amazing. She is very active and generally seems happy, where I’ve had other snails had accidents and then retract and sleep all the time until they die so I really think it has a big impact on her survival.

Also, instead of isolating her completely I have her with 2 older snails that don’t move much so she’s not alone but also not at risk of being hurt further and then she gets supervised visits with her other friends at least once a day. I mist her twice a day too so she doesn’t dry out.

Here’s a pic of her with another one from her clutch: ibb.co/7Q4BhFX

Has anyone else had this happen? Or has anyone seen a snail lose their shell and make a full recovery?

[snerdahmik]

This happened to me! When my Heavy Weather was very young, I found him on the sidewalk with a badly damaged shell. It was like fragmented bits just resting on top of his organs, but his organs were left undamaged. I took him in and kept him by himself for a few weeks, and he slowly healed like yours did! He now has a very strong shell and made a full recovery, but he has a "scar"; little cracked (but completely healed) bits that just regrew in a broken shape.

I completely agree with what you said about a snail's attitude mattering. Heavy Weather always remained very active as well, and I would make sure his shell stayed wet constantly. Usually if the snail survives the first night they're likely to heal up if they remain chipper.

[snerdahmik]

http://instagram.com/p/Bwxj5aLgvvV

Here he is as a youngin

[snerdahmik]

http://instagram.com/p/B7XQUCgBanx

Here he is all grown up!

[GailTheSnail]

Mar 3, 2020 17:22:27 GMT snerdahmik said:

http://instagr.am/p/B7XQUCgBanx

Here he is all grown up!

Omg!! So precious! Thank you so much for sharing 😊 so glad to see yours healed. Mine ended up fully regenerating her shell but ultimately died due to mites. It was heartbreaking because I know if It wasn’t for the mites she would have recovered but I couldn’t ever pick her up to wash them off of her and the predatory mites can only help so much. At least we know now that it is possible for snails without shells to recover❤️