CATDOLL : CATDOLL: What kind of snail is this? I picked it up on the roadside after the rain. Can I keep it?

What kind of snail is this? I picked it up on the roadside after the rain. Can I keep it?

This should be a white jade snail, which is non-toxic. If you want to raise it, you can try it. Generally, it is fed with some broad-leaved plants such as cabbage, green vegetables, and lettuce in spring, and a large amount of sugar cane, sunflower leaves, and various melon and fruit peels in summer. In autumn, the temperature is low and the appetite decreases, so you can feed it some vegetable leaves. White jade snails do not eat grass or weeds, and refuse to eat onions, leeks, and garlic with pungent tastes. However, when hungry, they will cannibalize each other. It likes dark and humid places, so remember to decorate it.

African giant snail (scientific name: Achatina Fulica): It is a medium-to-large terrestrial snail. The shell length of an adult is generally 7-8 cm, and the largest can grow to more than 20 cm. It is nocturnal and omnivorous. It is mostly active in humid environments and likes to appear in rainy and nighttime environments. It usually hides in cool places and makes a layer of white film (false stoma) on the shell opening, leaving only a small hole for breathing. It retracts the snail meat into the shell to prevent dehydration and comes out when the environment improves.

African giant snail (scientific name: Achatina Fulica): It is a medium-to-large terrestrial snail. The shell length of an adult is generally 7-8 cm, and the largest can grow to more than 20 cm. It is nocturnal and omnivorous. It is mostly active in humid environments and likes to appear in rainy and nighttime environments. It usually hides in cool places and makes a layer of white film (false stoma) on the shell opening, leaving only a small hole for breathing. It retracts the snail meat into the shell to prevent dehydration and comes out when the environment improves.

How to raise snails

For commercial production, it is suitable to breed snails in large quantities in open places such as courtyards, ditches, and haystacks, or to breed them in containers such as earthen pots, pottery bowls, porcelain jars, wooden boxes, plastic boxes, and barrels. However, for the purpose of a small number of snails for entertainment, it is more appropriate to use transparent plastic tanks, boxes, or plexiglass boxes for viewing. Two small water tanks should be placed in the box, and it is generally more appropriate to breed about 10 snails.

It is better to have a larger box, because 6 to 8 cm thick breeding soil needs to be placed in the box as a habitat for the snails.

The breeding soil can be made of garden soil, sandy soil, yellow sand, cinder ash, and stone powder. Mix it in the ratio of 3:3:2:1:5:0.5 and expose it to the sun for several days for disinfection. Then add water and the humidity reaches 40%. However, it needs to be replaced once after 1 to 2 months of breeding.

It is advisable to start raising young snails. One-month-old snails can be fed with fresh cucumbers, apples, tender cabbage and green leaves once a day. The temperature should be controlled at 25-30 degrees, and the feeding amount should be about 1/10 of the snail's body weight.

In winter, the temperature drops, the soil should be appropriately thickened, and a thicker layer of fallen leaves and cotton wool should be placed in the box to keep warm. When the temperature drops to about 10 degrees, air conditioning or light bulbs should be used around the box to keep warm, but the light bulbs should be covered with black cloth to prevent strong light exposure. If you burn coal stoves indoors, move the breeding box to another place to avoid carbon monoxide fumigation, otherwise the snails will be poisoned.

Keep the box clean and hygienic, remove residual food, feces and other dirt every day, and wash the food bowl. Cover the top of the box with a wire mesh lid to provide adequate ventilation, and prevent damage from natural enemies such as rats and mosquitoes, especially its biggest natural enemy - mites. Disinfect the breeding environment with diluted peracetic acid every week.

Snails need moisture the most and are most afraid of dryness. If the box is relatively dry, it is very important to spray water into the box.

A. Feeding method

Generally, there are two types: outdoor open-type and indoor closed-type. Outdoor open-type includes ditch-type, shed-type, courtyard-type, etc., which allow snails to grow and reproduce in a protective circle similar to natural conditions. Indoor closed-type breeding can use soil pots, plastic pots, wooden boxes, cement pools, barrels, cylinders, cans, etc., and use gauze, wet cloth, and film to seal them to keep warm and moisturize and prevent rodent damage. Indoor closed-type breeding is convenient for regulating temperature and humidity. With sufficient feed, it can not only relieve snails from hibernation, but also achieve the purpose of winter breeding and winter breeding. It is best to use plastic film to seal the surroundings of indoor breeding to maintain temperature and humidity.

B. Preparation of breeding soil

①Compound garden soil

30% uncontaminated garden soil, 30% sandy soil, 20% yellow sand, 15% coal ash, 5% stone powder, mix and grind, expose to the sun for 3-5 days to disinfect and kill insects, sieve, and then add water to make the humidity around 40%, that is, it can be kneaded into a ball and fall apart with a blow. The thickness of the soil in the pot is: 10cm for adult snails, 7cm for growing snails, and 3cm for young snails. It should be replaced once every 1-2 months of feeding.

②Sponge replacement method

Spread a 5cm layer of sponge on the bottom of the pool or box, and keep it 4 times its own weight in water. Clean up leftover food every day and clean up feces every 3 days.

C. Feeding method

For young snails under 1 month old, they should be fed with some fresh and tender leaves. The concentrated feed should be softened with boiling water and stuck on the leaves. Feed once a day. The optimum temperature should be controlled at 25-30℃. The temperature difference between day and night should not be large. When spraying water, do not spray the young snails directly. In addition to green feed, growing snails should be fed with more concentrated feed, and trace elements and additives should be added. The daily feeding amount is 7% to 10% of the snail's body weight. Feed should be placed in a food rack or food bowl to clean up the residue. The stocking density increases from dense to sparse with the increase of individuals, 400 to 200 per square meter. A 60×30×25cm breeding box can hold 100 snails. After 5 to 6 months, they can be harvested when the shell height is 4cm and the weight is more than 40g.

D. Wintering management

Hibernation can be ended under artificial temperature and humidity control. If the breeding conditions are not met, when the temperature drops to around 15℃, insulation treatment should be carried out according to local conditions. If it is moved indoors, the breeding soil should be thickened to 25cm and cotton wool should be used for insulation.

Problems that should be paid attention to when feeding snails artificially

Snails are omnivorous animals that need a variety of nutrients during their growth and reproduction. Experiments have shown that it takes 210 days for a one-month-old snail to grow to 50 grams when fed with a single feed, while it only takes 150 days when fed with a compound feed, a difference of two months. Therefore, to feed snails well, the first thing is to scientifically formulate the feed, and the second is to pay attention to the scientific feeding method.

1. Common feed types and characteristics

1. Green feed, such as tender branches and leaves of green plants, is the basic feed for snails, which is rich in chlorophyll, plant protein, inorganic salts and vitamins.

2. Melon and potato feeds such as pumpkin, wax gourd, potato, sweet potato, etc. are rich in starch, sugar, minerals and water, are crispy and juicy, and have good palatability.

3. Bran feeds such as wheat bran, rice bran, corn husks, bean husks, etc. are rich in starch, phosphorus, sulfur and vitamin E.

4. Oil meal feeds such as soybean meal, sesame meal, bean cake, rice bran cake, etc. can provide rich protein, oil, and vitamin B.

5. Animal feeds such as fish meal, bone meal, earthworm meal, etc. are high in protein, calcium, and phosphorus, and contain a full range of essential amino acids.

6. Inorganic feed includes bone meal, shell meal, silkworm shell meal, shrimp shell meal, etc. which can provide rich calcium.

It should be pointed out that snails do not eat irritating foods such as onions, garlic, leeks, peppers, etc. When feeding, poisonous plants such as euphorbia, aconite, hypericum, celery, and arisaema should not be mixed in.

2. How to prepare feed

When preparing snail feed, we should not only consider the snail's age, weight, physiological state, etc., but also pay attention to the following issues:

1. In compound feed, green feed should be more, and beans, cereals and bran feed should be less.

2. Choose feed that is cheap and has high nutritional value according to the region and season.

3. When preparing feed, at least three types of feed should be selected to ensure that the nutrients are complete.

4. The prepared feed should not contain toxic or moldy substances.

3. Feeding Method

1. Feeding amount Snails have a large food intake, and their daily food intake accounts for about 4% to 5% of their body weight. Generally speaking, the amount of food fed each time should be higher than 4%, but not too much, so that they can finish eating before the next feeding.

2. Feeding frequency In hot summer, generally feed once a day. In spring and autumn, feed once every 1-2 days. In winter, if there is no heating, feed enough feed before hibernation, and feed enough feed after hibernation, so that it can recover its strength as soon as possible and grow and develop in time. If it is heated in winter, the feeding frequency can be controlled according to the temperature, usually feeding once every other day.

3. Feeding time: Snails are active at night, so feeding should be arranged in the evening and there is no need to feed them during the day.

4. Feeding method: It is best to choose a single variety of vegetables, fruit leaves, and green plant stems and leaves each time to avoid wasting the feed that the snails only eat. Green feed can be placed directly on the breeding soil or on a net woven from plastic ropes, allowing the snails to forage on their own. Rice bran, wheat bran, fish meal and other feeds should be placed in a porcelain basin and placed in the middle of the pool or box. Compound feed should be mixed with warm water in the basin first, and the amount of water should be such that it can be held in a ball by hand and will fall apart when released. Remember that feed cannot be placed in an iron basin to prevent the iron from rusting and poisoning the snails after eating.