what got you into snails?

[cepaeanemoralis]

i was walking down the street on a rainy, humid, GROSS day, and saw a garden snail. I picked him up, and took him home. when we got home i looked up care on the internet, set up a tank. And here i am, a month later, with Gary.

[moonboots]

i was a strange child, always into worms and bugglys and things (i used to race garden snails down my play slide in the garden!!) so when my boyfriends mum offered me some fulicas, cos she was gettin over crowded, i jumped at it!

I started with just the one in summer 2006....
now i got Enzo (original), Sprout, Niles, Warlock, Butternut and Squash (bein re homed soon) and got 4 more arrivin tomorrow, two more fulicas and 2 hamilleis! woop!

[Rachel]

i had my first garden snail egg aged four and hatched it sucsessfully (god knows how), that was alice the first, it sorta grew from there

[Katie]

I went to a friends house and she had an african one and so i wanted one. But i did also used to keep garden ones in lunchboxs and cry when they escaped

[brgwnth]

found a snail with a broken shell, took it home, made a home for it, and have loved them ever since.

and here i am now with french and saunders the baby tigers... and maybe a new one too!

[coyote]

One late spring evening after the rain had cleared up, I saw dozens of garden snails crawling all over the sidewalk and driveway at my then-bf's place. One had even crawled onto the side of his car, somehow. I had never really looked at a snail before. I was fascinated with such strange creatures living their lives so differently from dogs, cats and birds, animals I was more familiar with. I went on the internet to learn more about them which eventually led me here.

From studying snails I have come to learn more about invertebrate life in general and have a great appreciation for the role invertebrates play in the ecosystem. If it wasn't for the invertebrates, all the tiny creatures, higher life could not exist.

[Deleted]

my mum got me a fulica randomly (in Jan 2003), cuz the local childrens nursery had them as pets and they had too many babies. then a year later i found snail websites on the internet and it grew from there.

[donut]

thru my kids they LOVE snails & when my eldests godmother mentioned they had GALS in the nursery i just had to get the kids some so we now have 2 Fuli 1 Margi & 4 GS we also had 30 or so GS that the kids had rescued over the winter that got released earlier this year

[Amagi]

When I was little, i found this abandoned 'place' beside my gandparents' farm and found a bunch of snails there and played with them and thought they were soo cute and fell in love immediately. Everytime it rained, i would go to that place and find out there were more snails in there than grass .

About an year before I moved to Canada, everything changed... I blame it on the pesticide spraying airplanes...no more snails, only shells, even after rain. It became rare luck if I find a snail there.


Now that I think about it, I feel so sad...

And a few years after I moved to Canada, which would be a few weeks ago, I found a wild snail (species unknown) from Scanlon Creek in Ontario and took him home. Named him Silkie!!!

Two days ago I found a Cepaea nemoralis in my neighbourhood (Grove Snail) and brough it in with Silkie. Still thinking of a name...

[whodoesntlovesnails]

i was (and still am) interested in snails and bugs, and i have always had a passion for that as long as i could remember, i guess it came naturally.

[sandie]

My local florists had a printed notice in the window advertising "Giant African land Snails" for sale. On an impulse, I went inside and enquired. I bought six, last October. They were about four months old. I gave two away to one of my friends, and kept four for myself.

I now have the original four, plus five Garden Snails, two White Jade Albinos, and now, since tonight, about twenty babies, and some still hatching!

Snails grow on you!!!

[ravenqueen]

Everyone's stories are cool!

My boyfriend and I are in to animals of all sorts. He saw something on TV about GALS and we thought they'd be cool to have. We found out they are illegal here, so I've been trying ever since to find native species to keep.

I was a little bit obsessed about it and looked all over our local gardens and forest in Massachusetts but none appeared for me. We were getting ready to move back to Colorado at the time and I figured they'd be easier to find there rather than in Colo because it is much more moist there. I was very disappointed when I didn't find one.

Well, on our way to Colorado, our trailer's leaf spring (keeps the weight of the load off the axle and the tire) broke and we got stuck in Iowa. My boyfriend got really upset and I was near tears so I took our dogs on a walk to let him cool off, as there happened to be a trail going into a wooded area right where we stopped. The dogs scared off a bunch of birds, and I almost stepped on this tiny snail shell. I was so excited I could hardly stand it. I picked it up, and I think that I bird had dropped it because there were little scratch marks near the opening of the shell. I wasn't sure if he was alive, so I stuck him in my pocket and finished my walk.

After we got into a hotel that night, I took him out and put him in the empty ice bucket with a damp washcloth in the bottom. We came back from dinner a couple hours later and he was out and moving around! Fortunately, I had brought back some salad so he had food.

He's been home with us for over 6 weeks now and, as I mentioned in another thread, he laid a clutch of eggs!!! He's the definitely one of the coolest pets I've ever had and he really seems to enjoy his little home. Certainly better than getting eaten by a bird!

I hope to add more snails to my collection, although it is very hard here in the US.

[Kate :)]

One day, when I was about 7 or 8, my parents dragged my sister and I out to a big shop/garden centre called Leekes. We really didn't want to go, and it was so boring.
We had to wander round looking at fireplaces, light fittings, kitchen utensils, sofas, mirrors, ovens, toilet seats, plants...etc. etc. etc.
...and then there was the pet department.
We looked at the rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, budgies, and fish - each time pleading with Mum and Dad to let us have one, they kept replying no, becoming increasingly annoyed with each response ;D
And then Dad spotted a tank full of something. They were snails! ;D - Achatina Fulica.
He was intrigued...and they were only 60p.
So me and my sister were bought one each
(I have no idea what possessed my mother for her to agree to that! She hates and fears all bugs, worms, spiders and molluscs with a passion! xD)
Augustus and Dodger - as they were affectionately named - lived in an old fish tank. It was the ex-home of our deceased fish: Buckingham Palace and Rainbow Wriggle. We were so good with names. lol ;D
They lived for about 4 years, and when they sadly passed away, they were burried alongside all our other pets in the back garden - those being 2 guinea pigs, countless goldfish and a hamster called George.
They layed a fair few batches of eggs, but Mum and Dad got rid of them out of fear of the house being over-run by snails. xD

I haven't had any snails since Augustus and Dodger, but a few weeks ago I bought a tank and I should be getting a few new ones soon
Can't wait! Lol ;D

[rotteriffic]

I studied Animal Care at college, and they were giving a batch of Fulicas away. I like them because they're different to your average fluffy family pet like hamsters, and I've always felt empathy for snails because they have to carry their homes on their backs which is kinda awesome. Go snails!

[chriswade]

i saw a load of baby fulica at a reptile show a few weeks back and have been interested ever since

[ginageorge]

when me and my sister were kids we used to spend hours collecting snails in our garden she would push them round in her pram lol
then when we had to go in for bed the snails got left outside when we got up in the morning of course the snails had done a runner lol
then we would start again i can remember spending many happy hours looking for them
then about 3 years ago one of my best mate's girls got 2 gals and i was asked to snail sit while they went on holiday that was it i was hooked and now 3 years later am the proud owner of 4 different species

[kimikofairy]

Well a couple of years ago i used to collect snails and start snail farms with my brother then that excitement died down until recently about in Feb this year i was ill and had to take a week off school and had to spend loads of time in the fresh air, well anyway i fell asleep with my blankets on a bench in the garden when it started to rain, how ever i decided to stick it out and hide under the covers where i fell asleep again, and when i woke up a couple of hours later there was garden snails all over the inside of my blanket. sooo i decided to collect them all up and make a house for them in my old plastic fishtank with soil and gravel and flower pots and some weeds which still had to roots attached and planted them, and counted the snails as i put them in, and there was 142 so i fed them and looked after them for an month, they layed eggs releced loads back into the wild until i was left with 2 breeding adults and some of their offspring. Then as i was brousing ebay i came across some GALS i had done loads of research into them and decided to get some A flucia but i didn't want them from there and so broused the internet and came accross this site where i bought 3 A flucia from Donut. then after attending a dentist appoint ment i wondered in to a pet shop where i discovered a large glass tank filled with A flucias for £2.99 each BIG Adults. and before i knew it i was out of the shop carrying a large tub and with £2.99 less in my purse. LOL Bought a 2 ft glass tank and made an amazing home for them all. And hav been obssed with snail everything ever sinse. so i now have 4 Achatina fulicas and 7 garden snails and eggs.... HEHE

[rvd]

I'm 13, in young days, youth adapt the small tradition of having insects as pets, I'm sure some of you would agree?
Anyway, I started off with Caterpillars, but the tub got to wet somehow and they died. So I decided to have a small pet slug, I let him go later when I found a Aspersa. Then it grew from there.

So yeah, it was that little click children have to just pick up an insect and keep it.

[dibbie]

I'va always loved creepy crawlies since being a child and have kept lots of different ones from snakes to slo-worms and lizards.

My fiancee has never shared my love of our cold-blooded cousins and is more a hamster kind of girl. She has always had a sneaking interest though.

Pretty recently she sent me a mail to say that someone on our local free-cycle group was giving some GALS babies away and, ignoring the fact that she had only mailed me because she thought it was funny, I told her we were getting some!

I've only been a snail owner for a short while but I am totally hooked! Already I have 2 fulcia toddlers and 2 semi adult Marginatas, a new tank and a fridge full of veggies and babyfood! I'm loving every minute.

[lizzie97444]

I never had much interest in them.
But wen My mummy found a small garden snail (3mm long!) I LUVED SNAILS!!!!!!!!
It's sooo cute BUT IT PPOOOPS ALOT AND EATS ALOT^^
I got 11 from my friend! btu aquatic ones:( My poor little garden snail don't hav friends!!!!

[Deleted]

Aug 16, 2008 12:00:39 GMT lizzie97444 said:

I never had much interest in them.
But wen My mummy found a small garden snail (3mm long!) I LUVED SNAILS!!!!!!!!
It's sooo cute BUT IT PPOOOPS ALOT AND EATS ALOT^^
I got 11 from my friend! btu aquatic ones:( My poor little garden snail don't hav friends!!!!

please don't repeat the same thing in multiple threads.

[lizzie97444]

Soryy
I jst get too over acted with snails