Lethargic Fulica

[aerliss]

I went away for five days last week, leaving my snails in the care of my partner. At some point Avery, adult fulica, took a fall and has lost a small chunk of shell at the very rim, right above his body.

Since I've been back he's not been retracting into his shell when he sleeps. I know a lot of people have snails that stay almost completely out of their shells when they sleep, but Avery has never done this and now he's not retracting at all to sleep, or very much when I pester him. He just sort of goes very limp and his eye stalks fold down like they do when he eats. I can only assume it IS sleep.

This morning I got up and found him limp and stretched out across the water bowl, his shell outside the bowl, so I knew he couldn't have drowned (not that it's deep enough for that anyway). Gave me a bit of a fright as, when I picked him up, he didn't react. It took him a few seconds and then he sluggishly drew himself in a little.

Does anyone know why he might have started spending all his time outside his shell? He has been eating and MAY have laid eggs (goodness only knows who they belong to). There were only 7 eggs, last time he laid there were a good couple of hundred. However they were darker and smaller than the eggs I've found, and these latest ones were scattered throughout the tank (one was even on top of a log I've turned into a little mezzanine)... so they could belong to the albino retics I have in there.

Is it at all possible he could be egg bound?

That sentence just sounds odd...

The two retics are just fine... in fact Odo got rather frisky with poor Avery this morning. Avery wasn't having any of it and just... sat there.

[coyote]

It's possible he may have had a fall that resulted in an injury to his mantle, which would make it difficult to retract into his shell. That happened to one of my milk snails. If that's the case, I would recommend treating it like a mantle tear and place him in a shallow tank to prevent him from climbing and putting further strain on the mantle. Also keep the tank a lot more humid (since he can't retract to protect himself from drying out).

It's also possible there is another explanation, but off the top of my head I don't know what.

[aerliss]

Thanks for the advice Coyote. The day I returned I did some tank modifications to increase the humidity (as my mods the previous week to improve ventilation had made the humidity drop) so ahead of you on that one XD

This morning he was sleeping fully retracted like he normally does. He's still eating and has been moving around the tank a lot more so hopefully whatever he was suffering from has passed/healed. I'll bare your advice in mind if anything like it happens again though.

[coyote]

Glad to learn he's more or less back to normal.