Deep Retraction

[danikat]

The day before yesterday I got back from a 10 day trip to see my parents and found all 5 of my snails in a pretty sorry state. Most of the food I'd left them with was untouched, there was very little poo or other signs of activity and they all seemed to be in various states of hibernation. One was sealed in with the usual film over the shell and partially buried, another two had a partial film over them and the last two were showing deep retraction.

I assumed the cause was the temperature. We'd left the heating on in their room, and they have a heat mat under the tank, but it'd gotten much colder over the time we were away so it might not have been enough. I immediately put them all in a warm bath and all but one woke up. Sadly Ruby, who was always the smallest and least healthy, had died (although apparently only recently as she didn't really smell bad).

I also put the heat mat inside the (plastic) tank under the coir instead of underneath it and turned the heating up in the whole house. Yesterday two of them were back to their normal activity but one of the others didn't move at all and the 4th only emerged from his shell to eat a bit of the lettuce he was sat on this morning.

I've given them a bath in warm green tea whilst doing their usual cleaning routine which seems to have woken them all up (although Tim, the one who only woke up this morning, isn't moving much and has a very thick layer of mucous covering his whole body). I've also added green tea to their snail mix and given them some raw garlic to eat as I've heard both can help sick snails.

Edit: I've just noticed when I went to put them back in the tank after their bath they're now all producing really thick mucous. It's the same as their normal slime but a lot more of it.

I'm just wondering if anyone has any other suggestions. Does it sound like they're just cold and taking a long time to recover (they are all getting on a bit, into their 4th year) or could there be something more going on? (And if so is there anything else I can do to help them?)

Thanks.

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[coyote]

I'm so sorry about Ruby. Sometimes a snail will pass on no matter how well we take care of them. I'm glad to hear that the others have revived to one degree or another, though.

I'm not sure about the extra thick slime question. It may take more than a couple of days of extra heat for them to get back to normal, so keep an eye on them and let us know how they are doing. Are they eating ok?

[danikat]

Thanks everyone. Not what I wanted to come home to after christmas, but at least the others are alright.

Coyote - They don't seem to have eaten anything since yesterday but other than that 3 of them are back to their normal activity. One, Orion, has gone back into hibernation but that could be because he found the coldest corner of the tank and sat there all day, he's also always the first to hibernate for any reason at all. I haven't woken him up but I did move him over the heat mat and put some food right by him for when he does wake up.

[aerliss]

Sorry that you lost Ruby, danikat. I hope the others pull through okay.

Could it be something to do with the humidity? I know snails usually estivate, but snail mucus is made up of water and minerals (mostly). The sudden leap in temperature could be drying them out?

[danikat]

I did wonder about that, so after cleaning their tank out at the weekend I've been checking on both the temperature and the humidity about twice a day, everything seems to be fine again but they're still not improving.

They haven't eaten since I got home last week, and whilst they sometimes move around the tank they spend most of their time tucked up inside their shells, it looks really weird so I've posted some pictures. At this point it's mainly the not eating that's worrying me though.

[coyote]

Hmm, the not eating is a bit of a concern. They look a bit on the thin side in those pics.

Have you tried taking their favorite food and mushing it into a soft, easy to eat pulp? At this point I'd be trying various tricks to coax them to eat.

[Bumblebee]

You could try and maybe lure them out of the shells and offer them some soaked fishflakes, most snails seem to go nutty for that, and also some of their favorite foods mushed up. What i have read it seems like ill snails prefer to eat soft and mushy food in front of normal foods.

[danikat]

Well that got a little bit of sucess. I gave them a mix of milk, snail mix and mashed cucumber (their other favourite is lettuce which doesn't mash well) and at least two of them were definately eating. The other two haven't even come all the way out of their shell and I couldn't see them eating anything.

I'll keep trying though, maybe if I can wake them up a bit more with a bath first it'd get them to eat at least something, and I'll get some fish flakes ASAP (when the snow allows).

I'm still concerned about that mucous though. I've never seen them produce so much of it, or so thick. I don't know if it's supposed to be protective like the covering they make when hibernating or maybe a reaction to an illness or something, but it's definately not normal.

[coyote]

Keep an eye on them, and I hope they continue to respond.

[danikat]

Finally some good news! None of them moved during the night or today but this afternoon I managed to wake all 4 up and get them to eat a bit of the cucumber/snail mix mash. Two went right back to sleep (as in the picture above, looking kind of like deep retraction) but the other two stayed away for a little while after.

I'm hoping if I can keep doing this it'll get them some energy back and they'll make a full recovery.

[coyote]

That's a good sign. If you can get them to keep eating a little, it's a step in the right direction.

[crossless]

Reptile keepers sometimes add honey to bath water so when animal drink little it get some energy from honey if it's sick. I think try that sometime when I have sick snail. I think drop or few it's fine it's so sweet stuff anyways.

[danikat]

Bad news.
At first I thought we were making progress, all 4 of them ate the first day, but then it was 3, then 2 and now just 1.

Sadly all 3 of the others have passed on.

I'm still not sure what caused this. The cold is the obvious answer but that really thick slime they were throwing out (which is gone now thankfully) and the fact that they didn't improve when the temperature and humidity went back up makes me think it could be something else, maybe being cold and not eating left them vulnerable to disease?

The other possibility is it was not eating itself, they essentially starved, although I would have thought if that was it when they started eating again they'd just keep improving.

One thing I am pretty sure of is the deep retraction was just a result of not eating because it got less drastic when they started eating again, even if they didn't recover in other ways.

[coyote]

I'm so sorry about your snails. It's probably impossible to determine exactly the cause of their passing away. The cold didn't help, and the not eating certainly did weaken them to some extent. I'm not sure what may have caused the excess slime. There is very little known about snail illnesses and diseases, so it's very hard to say what might have been going on. Many times snails pass away for no discernible reason (I've lost 4 Otalas this past week for no reason I can determine, other than they were very small and hardly grew at all after hatching and may simply have had congenital weakness.)

[Bumblebee]

Hmm first thing that come to my attention is if snails can get some sort of cold?
Since you said they had been kept a big cold (not sure how cold they where kept at that moment tho =/ ), and that strange slime coming from them.

Still that dont really explain why they stopped eating, maybe snails are so much more sensitive to diseases that other kinds of animals?

[danikat]

My one survivor, Orion, gave me a scare today. I checked him at 9am and he was actually out of his shell and climbing the wall. but then I looked in on him 2 hours later and he was upside down on the floor and tucked way back into his shell. He actually looked dead.

Luckily a warm bath woke him up, maybe a bit harsh since I now suspect what happened was he went to sleep and pulled too far back to hold onto the tank, but I've lost so many recently I wanted to make sure.

Since he's up I'll feed him before putting him back in the tank. And keep my fingers crossed he pulls though.

[danikat]

I'm not sure if he's getting better or not. The strange thick mucous stopped a while ago and he's been waking up and eating every day, but other than that he just sits tucked up in his shell. Aside from that one time yesterday morning he hasn't moved at all except when I wake him up to eat.

I'm also wondering how long I should leave it before I think about getting him some more companions, or even if I should. He's spent his entire life with the others but hasn't been around other snails since he was born. He's 4 now and I don't know if it'd be better to get him some friends (when I'm sure whatevers wrong has passed) or leave him in peace.

[danikat]

Well it's finally happened. My last snail has died.

Same story as with the others, he seemed to be recovering and then just stopped coming out of his shell and a few days later was dead. I still have no idea why, beyond the obvious lack of eating, this happened but over the course of 3 weeks I've lost 5 of them.

[lee2211]

I've deleted the non-essential posts, to keep the thread informative.
Other information about deep retraction and hibernation and how to prevent it is on the petsnails website.
www.petsnails.co.uk/problems/retracted.html#start

ETA: petsnails.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=pests&action=display&thread=4400
^ Above link is a very informative thread about possible causes of deep retraction, it's worth taking a look.

Extra links WRT Deep Retraction (I picked the most informative + ones with pictures)

petsnails.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=pests&action=display&thread=7849

petsnails.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=pests&action=display&thread=4486

[aerliss]

Thanks for the clean up lee, and pointing to other threads.

Been having this problem for a while now with my fuli, Avery. Just so people can... take a guess at age; he was virtually fully grown when I got him, he's added barely 5mm of shell growth, and I've had him for over three years.

He'd lost a little weight recently and I'd been taking extra efforts in getting him to put on weight again (lots of high energy/protein foods and mixes). He's been eating and pooping just fine and had started putting on weight.

All seemed good.

Yesterday morning I checked in on the guys before going to work and Avery had retracted about an inch into his shell. I actually thought he'd died, but he started poking his head out at me as he woke up. He'd been fine the night before and had actually just made a huge pile of poo, so I know he's been eating.

I have no trouble coaxing him out; as soon as I pick him up he starts coming out of his shell and will, eventually, pull the mantle to within about half a centimetre of the aperture. He'll slime about a bit, have a nibble then retract again.

No idea why he's gone from getting healthy to such retraction... but some ideas;

He had a nasty fall recently, right from the top of the tank to the substrate, onto the thin plastic take-away lid I put their food on; about a 45cm drop. There was no damage to the shell as far as I could see, but he did seem very... discombobulated.

Although this happened two nights before the sudden deep retraction, it could be what's caused it; perhaps he has some internal damage.

Also, I lost a retic a few month ago after he literally wasted away... he just wouldn't eat. When he died I cleaned out the tank and discovered a huge stash of eggs (unfortunately none hatched). I concluded he must have succumbed to a problem that I've read retics have, after laying eggs (they stop eating, or eat very little and die). Now I'm starting to think it might be some sort of illness/pest.

However, the other young fuli and two retics I have in there appear to be fine. Eating, growing, active. Also, the retic died months ago, and while Avery was a dense, heavy snail so weight loss would take a while to show, I wouldn't have thought the others would continue to grow?

My three/four (depends on when I remember to order!) monthly dose of hypoaspis arrived today so I'm hoping they'll help deal with any beasties that may be the cause.

[cherryblossom]

sorry about your snails Danikat xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx you tried so hard too

[lee2211]

Sept 7, 2010 21:39:29 GMT aerliss said:

Thanks for the clean up lee, and pointing to other threads.

Been having this problem for a while now with my fuli, Avery. Just so people can... take a guess at age; he was virtually fully grown when I got him, he's added barely 5mm of shell growth, and I've had him for over three years.

He'd lost a little weight recently and I'd been taking extra efforts in getting him to put on weight again (lots of high energy/protein foods and mixes). He's been eating and pooping just fine and had started putting on weight.

All seemed good.

Yesterday morning I checked in on the guys before going to work and Avery had retracted about an inch into his shell. I actually thought he'd died, but he started poking his head out at me as he woke up. He'd been fine the night before and had actually just made a huge pile of poo, so I know he's been eating.

I have no trouble coaxing him out; as soon as I pick him up he starts coming out of his shell and will, eventually, pull the mantle to within about half a centimetre of the aperture. He'll slime about a bit, have a nibble then retract again.

No idea why he's gone from getting healthy to such retraction... but some ideas;

He had a nasty fall recently, right from the top of the tank to the substrate, onto the thin plastic take-away lid I put their food on; about a 45cm drop. There was no damage to the shell as far as I could see, but he did seem very... discombobulated.

Although this happened two nights before the sudden deep retraction, it could be what's caused it; perhaps he has some internal damage.

Also, I lost a retic a few month ago after he literally wasted away... he just wouldn't eat. When he died I cleaned out the tank and discovered a huge stash of eggs (unfortunately none hatched). I concluded he must have succumbed to a problem that I've read retics have, after laying eggs (they stop eating, or eat very little and die). Now I'm starting to think it might be some sort of illness/pest.

However, the other young fuli and two retics I have in there appear to be fine. Eating, growing, active. Also, the retic died months ago, and while Avery was a dense, heavy snail so weight loss would take a while to show, I wouldn't have thought the others would continue to grow?

My three/four (depends on when I remember to order!) monthly dose of hypoaspis arrived today so I'm hoping they'll help deal with any beasties that may be the cause.

I'm having exactly the same problem with my fuli!

He retracts really deep, but as soon as I pick him up he starts to come out straight away and slimes away.

I've now started weighing my snails weekly to make sure that I know that they're either gaining weight or staying the same.

[aerliss]

I intend to get some kitchen scales to add to my ever growing snail care set.

Sadly, I have decided it's time to let Avery go peacefully. He seemed to be doing very well yesterday. He pooped, ate some more and didn't pull his foot all the way into his shell to sleep. Today I came home and found him pulled so far back into his shell I could just see him. He was barely responding to being picked up and just about poked his eyes out when I gave him a long warm bath.

His foot had gone a very dark brown and seemed stiff (which I've seen happen with other dying snails). Even though I don't think he would have made it through the night, I decided to put him to sleep using clove oil and the freezer.

Good night little guy, we'll miss you.

[ness]

Aw that's really sad
RIP little Avery, he was obviously a well-loved little snail xx

[coyote]

I'm so sorry, aerliss. Rest in peace, Avery.