Snail shell broken, strange behavior

[Sabrina]

Hi, I am new here, I was wondering if you guys would be kind enough to give me some advice.

I've had a very small garden-type snail for about nine months. I noticed yesterday that she has a new, jagged hole on the edge of her shell and now she protrudes from this hole (not the normal one at the end of her shell). I don't know how she got hurt. We've given her lots of extra calcium and are trying to keep her clean and moist. I'm hoping that she will be all right, since she is still very active, but I don't think she's been eating or excreting since it happened. Also, she seems off balance now that she comes out of her shell weird.

Is there anything else I can do? Can she survive with her new, lopsided shell? By the way, she is really too small to handle, so even if I could coax her into going back to her shell normally, I don't think I could patch her.

Thanks so much!
Sabrina

p.s. This site has already been a big help, thank you.

[Paul]

The hole should start to heal on its own, the smaller the better. It starts with a papery covering and then hardens off. Snails tend not to eat or be very active when they've damaged their shells. In my experience they just trundle off to somewhere safe and allow their calcium reserves to do the rest.

As for the lopsidedness. I'm not sure what to say about that. If the body is sticking out of the hole the mend may not be successful but there's not a lot you can do about that. It sound like the hole is right to edge, sort of a semicircle chipped off and therefore the shell looks uneven. Is that the case?

Pictures would help me make an assessment.

[Sabrina]

Hi Paul, thanks for your post. I'm sorry, I couldn't get a picture of the damage--the snail is really small (her shell is about 6-7mm in diameter), she hasn't been positioned to show off her damage, and I'm afraid to move her around. I drew a very silly picture to try to explain her situation.



The red part is her original opening, and the blue part is the new hole. The whole snail (the green part) now comes out of the new break. As I said she is moving around quite a bit, and may have eaten today (as you can imagine it's not easy to tell with such a little creature) but she is used to carrying her shell with the weight all on one side, and now she is off balance.

Thanks again for the help, I know she isn't much compared to the big pretty snails y'all have, but my family and I have gotten quite attached to her.

[Paul]

That doesn't look good to me. If the snail continues to use that new opening, it probably won't repair, unless it manages to cover during one period of inactivity. The shell will probably continue to form at the proper end and grow and won't accommodate the body.

What you need to do it make the snail retract in past the hole so it can be blocked with something. Then simply cover the hole with something, a piece of plastic stuck over it; basically anything that won't harm the snail's body so we don't want tape because of the sticky side. Even something tied around the shell to block the hole would do. This need only be done for a week or so until the papery covering has formed and the snail can't use that hole to pop out of. Problem solved.

Let us know how you get on....

[Sabrina]

Hey Paul, thanks for your reply. It's really kind of you to take so much time to help me with my tiny snail. I was trying to figure out what to use to cover the break in her shell, but lo and behold, when I went to check on her this morning she was sitting in her shell properly, with her head out of the "real" hole. There seems to be a membrane over the break. I don't know when she had the time to do this because yesterday afternoon she was moving all over her habitat with her whole body sticking out of the broken part. What can I say, she is amazing, and you were right--she took care of herself just fine. I really hope the good situation will last. I can't wait for my little boy to get home so he can see that his friend is feeling better.

Thank you! You've been great.

Sabrina

[Paul]

You're welcome, glad to hear it's sorted!