Post by fendo on May 7, 2022 16:59:38 GMT
Hello all.
I’ve had a snail (most likely “achatina reticulata”) for the past 12 years or so, and it seems like it has passed away this week. Up to that point, it had been acting normally; only a few days earlier it stopped eating. (Sometimes it wouldn’t touch food for a day or two, so I wasn’t too concerned.) Then one day it went climbing the wall, but fell down a couple of times. (It wasn’t very high up, and it fell onto soft soil, so I don’t suppose it got hurt. This had happened a few times in its life, mostly when it was already old.) Then it retracted most of its body into its shell, leaving only a part of the leg sticking out, and spent a while lying on its side. Next day, it had pulled its entire body inside, and had not sealed the entrance like it always did when hibernating. I can see the white, inner wall of the shell in the open part. I have kept spraying the terrarium since, and I have put in fresh food a couple of times, but to no avail. It’s been like that for five or six days now.
In another thread with another case, muddydragon wrote:
I'm very sorry to say that he has died. fluid pouring out of the shell when uptruned + deep retraction + smell + hard to the touch means that he is certainly dead. There is no chance that he is alive i'm afraid. I'm so sorry
This description seems mostly accurate to this situation. The snail is deeply retracted, and fluid is accumulating in its shell (still lying on its side). I don’t know how strong of a smell it’s supposed to give off… I don’t feel hit by it when I walk by the terrarium, and the inside of the terrarium smells a bit, but not terribly so. The fluid that wells up in the shell does have a very strong, foul smell, though. I’ve poured it out twice now (into a paper towel which I threw away later) and could smell it each time. I should add that the fluid doesn’t appear entirely clear, but has a muddy, yellowy white colour. I have not touched the snail’s flesh to check if its hard yet (though at this point, I probably should).
Perhaps these are some obvious signs of death. But I have zero prior experience with this, and even though I’m now mostly convinced of (and reconciled to) its demise, I don’t want to go ahead and bury the snail unless I’m sure it’s actually dead, and has no real chance of coming back. So if anyone has any knowledge or experience they’d like to share, knows where I could find more resources on the matter, or just give their opinion or tips, I’d be grateful to hear any of it. (I might try filling the shell with water for a few seconds. I’ve also read in some other threads that dead snails sometimes fall out of the shell when shaken, but… I’d rather avoid trying that.) Thank you.
