coyote
Archachatina papyracea
Cochleas ego amo
Posts: 2,955
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Post by coyote on Jun 10, 2010 20:32:16 GMT
If you have a natural food store nearby, they might have the figs, especially if they have a bulk section (I can find them at a nearby Whole Foods store as well as at local independent health food stores).
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Post by crossless on Jun 11, 2010 14:06:03 GMT
I have noticed that sometimes figs fresh or dry ones are in fruit stands so you can put some in bag, scale it and go to pay from it to checkout. Sometimes they are hard to find from between other fresh fruits.
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Post by alexandra on Jun 17, 2010 22:23:31 GMT
Do the figs have to be white/special figs, or will any be good?
I have recieved my pumpkin seeds (the non edible kind), have placed 5 in each tank, but the snails aren't paying much attention to them. Any tips would be appreciated...
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coyote
Archachatina papyracea
Cochleas ego amo
Posts: 2,955
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Post by coyote on Jun 18, 2010 20:42:17 GMT
The figs do have to be white figs (Smyrna or Calimyrna).
I'm not sure what you mean by non-edible pumpkin seeds. I usually buy raw, hulled, unsalted, organic pumpkin seeds (from the bulk bin at a natural food store). The seeds need to be hulled and unsalted. If you are using seeds meant to be planted, for growing pumpkins, they might be treated with fungicides or other substances that I would not want to expose a snail to.
Many snail keepers grind up the pumpkin seeds, and they say their snails like the resulting mash a lot more than an intact seed that takes more effort to rasp on. I'm lazy, though, and just put one or 2 whole seeds into the tank. I do see rasp marks on them, so I know the snails eat them. Also, I keep only a couple of snails (and small species at that), so they don't eat much to begin with, so it's a lot of trouble to grind up one or 2 seeds. Grinding up seeds makes more sense for people who have a lot of large snails to feed. But maybe crushing up the seeds would make them more attractive to yours. It might be worth experimenting with.
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Post by alexandra on Jun 24, 2010 21:14:34 GMT
Well it turns out I got the planting kind of seeds, so I guess I'll try and grow them. Maybe the snails will like a bit of pumpkin. lol
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coyote
Archachatina papyracea
Cochleas ego amo
Posts: 2,955
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Post by coyote on Jun 25, 2010 20:45:54 GMT
My snails seem to enjoy pumpkin as much as sweet potato.
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Post by alexandra on Jun 26, 2010 22:40:49 GMT
Well the death toll reached four but I haven't seen any loose snails for a while. The snails would seem loose in their shell for a week before they'd get 'evicted' and so far everyone looks healthy. Hoping to post some footage of my snails soon
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Post by alexandra on Jul 6, 2010 23:26:27 GMT
Sadly the death is continuing to happen, I have two snails with the symptoms in quarantine, and I'm starting to wonder if I should just release all my snails and start again with only a couple... I kinda feel like I'm letting them down.
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Post by lee2211 on Jul 7, 2010 18:56:16 GMT
Have you tried the pumpkin seens AND figs? I think it would be best to try both, keep them in quarantine, with regular baths. If they do start to look loose, up the worming to every couple of days and see how it goes. At least when they're with you they are getting a chance at recovery. If they were released they would be suffering the same ordeal, just outside, and probably with a slower and more painful death. I think you're doing the right thing, don't give up on them.
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Post by alexandra on Jul 10, 2010 19:48:07 GMT
Today I managed to find somewhere to buy the pumpkin seeds. The good news is that I've only just put them in the tank and already a couple of snails are rasping on them! I will try to get the figs asap.
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Post by lee2211 on Jul 10, 2010 20:00:27 GMT
They obviously needed them I hope they get better soon, good luck
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coyote
Archachatina papyracea
Cochleas ego amo
Posts: 2,955
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Post by coyote on Jul 10, 2010 22:15:31 GMT
Glad your snails are going for the pumpkin seeds.
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Post by ness on Jul 19, 2010 20:19:17 GMT
Oh no how awful! I haven't anything useful to add that hasn't been said, in the way of advice.
Are there any tanks that are as yet uninfected? If so I would recommend putting them in an entirely different part of the house. Other than that I don't know what to suggest. The very best of luck. I hope the seeds work.
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Post by lee2211 on Aug 12, 2010 17:59:20 GMT
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Post by alexandra on Aug 16, 2010 20:27:17 GMT
Yes, I seem to have curbed the deaths down to zero by putting snails in a special tank when they show signs of slipping out of their shell, and making sure plenty of pumpkin seeds are at hand. I've still had snails look like they're beginning to slip out (say 5 to 10%) but they are recovering from it now and becoming normal.
About a month ago one of them was hanging out really badly, I marked him with a dab of nail polish so I could monitor him, and within a week or so he was fine and is living with the healthy snails again! Since then the frequency of needing to put snails in the 'ill tank' has dropped off rapidly.
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Post by lee2211 on Aug 16, 2010 22:28:02 GMT
That's great! ;D It really should be made a neccesity to provide a nursery tank to quarantine ill snails. Well I'm so glad to hear that! It's made my day If you look at the links some of them have really good suggestions of worm eradicating foods, you have the ones coyote wrote, the figs and the pumpkin seeds, but from what I remember there's other ones mentioned to that you might want to try.
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