Deep retraction? Or not? Garden snails

[an]

Hi!
I hope everyone is doing well!
I wanted to ask a question on deep retraction. I have witnessed deep retraction in 3 snails in the past and tried to help them and didn’t succeed, and that made me really sad. So now I’m trying to keep a better eye on this issue and make sure I feed those snails, that seem to have drs, individually, in case they are malnourished. But what I’ve noticed is this...especially in babies..
Some snails when they go to sleep, especially for a bit longer than just a day, go deep retracted, and some of them just never wake up, but some of them will wake up and the deep retraction seems to disappear, like the mantle goes back down and when they are awake and sliding, they look absolutely normal. This is very visible in the babies that still have a see through thin shell but I’m wondering if that’s just a growth spurt.
I have had an adult that was deep retracted recently and I woke him up because I knew he slept for 2 months and I was getting concerned so I woke him up and at first he struggled a lot to come out of the shell and couldn’t even stand up properly or eat because the shell was just big and covering him up all the way but after 2 days of good individual feeding he went back to normal, no deep retraction, normal size again and since then he’s very active and feeding regularly.
I see this in some babies too. But some babies do no wake up anymore.
So my question is...is it normal for snails to choose to deep retract or is it always a sign of deep retraction? And what I see in the babies, is it deep retraction or is it just shell growth while they are sleeping for longer periods and naturally their shells grow making them look deep retracted but they’re not?
I’m still having lots of babies dying. I would like to help them. What should I do when I see babies that look deep retracted, shall I let them be or wake them up ( I tried that with some and some didn’t wake up ) and try to feed them?
I would like to know if there’s a way that I can understand if what I see is deep retraction or just normal behaviour.
The majority of my adult snails never did this, when they sleep they’re always aligned with their shells, and so I’m not sure, it’s something new that I never really had before. I also try to rescue the snails that are in my garden/car park and I do see deep retraction in some of them possibly due to malnutrition/lack of food, but my snails always have lots of food so they should not show this unless maybe there are other issues that I’m not aware of like pests or something that bothers their health?
I would appreciate any info and suggestions on what to do with these snails that look deep retracted but I’m not sure if they are or not.
Thank you!

[snaileyhammy]

Hi there!

It could be that these snails are just retracting because of parasites, or incorrect tank conditions. That’s the only reason I can think of them retracting often, other then drs. Those are common reasons that I see babies die young of. But sometimes, they are runts, etc, and just don’t live long. Usually if a baby is ill, there isn’t much you can do. Unless they are larger. To make sure it’s not being affected by something else, just check your parameters, check for parasites, etc. Check and see how much their eating. I’ll have wrote up some more information for you later, but I hope that helps for now!

[bootlace]

Hi an,

yesterday my project partner found a video about the Deep Retraction Syndrome: youtu.be/5wHEezV6Vao
Or did you know already?

Greets from germany,
bootlace

[SuspiciousBagel]

Nov 1, 2021 16:51:09 GMT bootlace said:

Hi an,

yesterday my project partner found a video about the Deep Retraction Syndrome: youtu.be/5wHEezV6Vao
Or did you know already?

Greets from germany,
bootlace

Hello bootlace, that video shows a very unfortunate and severe case of deep retraction syndrome that is very unlikely to be treatable, which is why euthanasia was necessary. Most cases are not nearly as bad and can be recoverable if treated correctly. My giant African land snail, for example, is currently suffering from deep retraction but is only retracted about 0.3mm into the shell, a far cry from the poor snail in the video. As snaileyhammy said, there are alot of causes to deep retraction and some are solvable (improper humidity/temperatures, over-cleaning tanks, pests, etc- in my case the sudden drop in temperatures we're currently experiencing in the UK is probably the cause so I'm trying to insulate the tank and get a bigger heat mat) but others are not (bad breeding like inbreeding or having a runt- see the snail in the video) and can just get worse with time until the snail is too weak and passes away

I just wanted to mention this in case you were under the impression that all deep retraction cases are untreatable, which is not true.