CATDOLL : CATDOLL: Why many new breeders cannot raise snails well

However, many new breeders who have never raised snails cannot raise snails well. Some of the snails cannot reproduce small snails as soon as they are bought home, and some small snails die as soon as they hatch and do not start eating. More often, the reproduction of small snails is relatively smooth, and the number increases rapidly, but they grow slowly. They can grow up and sell after four or five months, but they cannot sell them after seven or eight months or even more than a year. The main reasons are as follows: 1. The source of the seeds is unknown, and sick snails are bought for breeding. Most breeders introduce seeds from snail dealers. When the dealers purchase snails from door to door, they accidentally receive sick snails during the purchase process, causing infection. Because some snails with bacteria are not easy to see when the finished snails are purchased. Even snails that have just become ill will quickly cause infection once they come into contact with healthy snails for breeding. At present, there is no specific medicine for snails to prevent diseases and epidemics. Therefore, breeders must be careful when purchasing seeds and not buy sick snails home. It is best to buy directly from a farm that has not been infected. When buying, first check whether the snails raised in his farm are growing well, whether the snails he keeps lay eggs, whether the newly born snails eat well, and whether the snails are tender and lively. In short, it is better to be cautious. Second: "Learning from others" and letting the wolf into the house. Many farmers "inspect" everywhere before and after introducing new species, frequently visit other farmers' homes to learn about them, enter their breeding rooms to watch, and even open the shed door with their hands to catch the snails to look at them. What's more, some catch a few to take home for "research", and inadvertently invite the sick "plague god" home. As a result, the snails have not been raised, but the disease has "haunted" them. When buying seeds, the seed supplier sold him a healthy and strong snail, but after a few days of raising it at home, he began to shrink his shell and refuse to eat. The snails were half dead and half alive, and the eggs he laid turned red and died when they hatched. In the end, no matter how many healthy seedlings are purchased, they will be infected with bacteria and cannot be raised well, resulting in heavy losses. Therefore, anyone who intends to raise snails should not visit a farm without knowing the details, so as not to bring germs home; at the same time, outsiders who have come into contact with snails, especially snail dealers, should not be allowed to enter your breeding room to watch. Isolation work is the top priority. Three: Ignoring characteristics and extensive management. Snails only need to be fed once a day, and young snails can be fed once every two or three days during the breeding stage, which is especially labor-saving and material-saving. Many farmers have the illusion that raising snails is much easier than raising other animals. In addition to feeding feed according to the routine, they often pay more attention to temperature and humidity, but mostly ignore the crucial stocking density. Under smooth conditions, snails reproduce very quickly. Many farmers have small breeding sheds or few fields. They are reluctant to throw away the snail eggs. No matter how many are born, they are raised together. As a result, they are raised and raised but they refuse to grow up. In fact, when the snails are more than ten days after hatching and the size is more than ten to twenty grams, they should be divided into boxes three or four times in geometric progression for breeding; when the adult snails reach a certain weight and can be sold, they should be sold, freeing up space for the remaining slightly smaller snails to grow, so as to avoid the snails from eating but not growing due to long-term crowding. Most farmers cannot make money in the first year, and the main problem lies here. It is not because of insufficient feed or insufficient nutrition such as protein, but because the density is too high and the breeding cycle is too long. This is similar to raising silkworms, and it is also important to "feed thin and eat full". It is different from raising silkworms. When the silkworms are daytime, although the stocking density is too high due to the limited area of ​​the silkworm room, the silkworms are weak, but they can still shed their skins on time and go up the mountain to make cocoons. The result is that the cocoons are small and thin, which only affects the production and price, and has little effect on the breeding cycle. Snails are sold according to individual weight. The high density obviously prolongs the breeding time, and they cannot be sold because they are small. Generally speaking, it is more suitable to breed snails in three-dimensional indoor environment at 350 per square meter and in outdoor fields at about 30,000 per mu. 4. The soil quality is not good and the water and soil are not suitable. In some mountainous areas and coastal areas, the soil is barren, saline and acidic, lacking organic matter and minerals. If snails are raised in these soils, the snails will not lay eggs and the adult snails will not grow shells and meat. People in these areas who have never raised snails blindly believe in advertisements and think that as long as they buy seeds, they can raise snails. Little do they know that the most important thing for snails is soil and water. In areas with good climate and soil, the soil is fertile and loose, and the climate is humid and mild, which is most suitable for snail growth. If you change the soil frequently (referring to indoor breeding in cold weather), add a little calcium such as lime powder to the soil. You don't need to feed it on the day of changing the soil. Snails like to eat fertile soil and absorb minerals and trace elements such as calcium and phosphorus in the soil. This not only saves costs, but also promotes its rapid growth. If the snails do not lay eggs, you should also change the soil more often to improve its nutrition and environment and encourage it to lay eggs. For field breeding, try to choose fertile and moist fields. In newly developed areas with poor soil conditions, it is best to ask someone with experience in snail breeding to help and develop a plan to adjust and improve the soil environment to avoid setbacks at the beginning. Some publications advocate "soilless breeding", saying that it is easy to breed without soil and only pad with cotton sponges, etc. This is just a beautiful idea. The author conducted this kind of experiment many years ago, and the difference with the control was too big. I used thick grey cloth for making wool sweaters, which has good moisture retention, instead of soil to breed in the greenhouse shed. As a result, after more than a month, under the same breeding and management conditions, the control (soil group) grew rapidly and was sold on time, while the experimental group ate the same feed but did not gain much weight. The reason is that the nutrients in the soil are irreplaceable. Although I added a variety of trace element additives to the feed of another experimental group at that time, its growth rate was still not comparable to that of CK (control). Five: Feed less lime and calcium supplementation is not enough. In rural areas far from towns, there is no house demolition, and old lime removed from the wall cannot be obtained. Fresh lime cannot be used, so no or little lime is fed, resulting in insufficient calcium supplementation for snails, slow growth, thin and stiff shells, and no eggs for breeding snails. This situation is also quite common. The solution is to supplement calcium regularly without interruption. After the young snails have been eating for a month, they should be fed with old lime removed from the old wall (calcium carbonate, good quality, easy to absorb), or limestone powder (also calcium carbonate, poor quality, difficult to digest and absorb), eggshell powder, shell powder, etc. every four or five days to a week. The method is to grind these materials into powder, then take about twice the amount of fine loose mud, mix them together, spray with water, and feed them to the snails in the evening as usual. After feeding lime mud, no other feed is needed on the same day. It should be emphasized that fresh lime that has just been bought or melted should never be fed to snails. The lime must be converted from calcium hydroxide to calcium carbonate. In layman's terms, fresh lime must be converted into old lime before it can be fed to snails. The above points are some of the more common problems that many farms and breeders have encountered in recent years. Here is a brief analysis, hoping to be helpful to new breeders.