CATDOLL : CATDOLL: How to raise snails at home?

Tools/Materials:

Snail, box, cabbage

Methods/Steps

1. Box

Prepare an empty small box with a lid, otherwise the little snail will escape!

2. Cornmeal

Add some cornmeal to the box, not a lot, and smooth it out.

3. Chinese cabbage

Ask the vegetable seller at the market for a few green cabbage leaves, put them on cornmeal, and put the little snails in.

4. Ventilation

The lid doesn't have to be tightly closed. There should be some space. You can make a few holes to allow air to circulate. You will find that snails always stay in places where air can circulate freely.

5. Avoid light

Snails hate light, but they yearn for free air and the ability to crawl freely, so they should be kept in a place away from light and with good ventilation as much as possible.

6. Cleaning

Clean the snail's nest regularly. There will be a lot of feces, so wipe it clean so that it can live happily.

The leaves and cornmeal should also be replaced regularly~

Recently, in the mountains near Fuzhou, a snail called the African giant snail, known as the "field killer", has been wreaking havoc on crops. It is said that some vegetable gardens were eaten up by them in one night. This matter has attracted the attention of local authorities. But did you know that most of these field killers actually come from the homes of local snail farmers! It turns out that as early as the 1980s, due to the high edible and medicinal value of snails, many people had already bred snails. Some local people believed that the nutritional value of African giant snails was also high, so they increased their breeding. Later, in the late 1980s, the state issued an order that African giant snails were harmful and could not be bred. So many farmers threw them into the wild, and a large number of African giant snails escaped into the fields, causing today's harm.

Indeed, in farmland, snails are veritable pests! It is said that they generally feed on green plants, especially on young shoots and tender leaves of plants. Their senses are sharp and flexible. A pair of long tentacles have eyes on the top, which can distinguish day and night and sense the intensity of light. A pair of short tentacles are olfactory organs, which can smell odors and find food. Although it is a mollusk, it has no bones but only soft muscles, but its mouth skills are very powerful. There are countless tiny teeth on its tongue, as many as more than 10,000. As long as they scrape the tender leaves with their tongues, they will scrape the tender leaves into their mouths. The more dew there is, the more harmful it is. At the same time, although they crawl much slower than turtles, their mobility is not bad at all. You see, only acrobats can compare with them in terms of skills. What's more annoying is that they like to live in dark and humid places. They stay still during the day and come out to move around with full energy at night. So if you don't observe carefully, you won't find their bad behavior.

Fortunately, the harm caused by snails to farmland is not very terrible. To prevent it from causing trouble, we only need to use some simple physical and chemical methods. However, people's attention to snails has been increasing in recent years, because relevant research has proved that snails have high edible and medicinal value. It is said that not only is snail meat a high-protein, low-fat and nutritious food, but snails can also treat many diseases.

Therefore, not only in Fujian, but now there are many places that are breeding snails. There are many types of snails in the world. There are thousands of species in my country, and many of them are suitable for breeding. Although the snail species are different, their living habits are similar. As long as we master these characteristics, it will not be difficult to breed them.

First, let's look at the daily feeding and management of snails. Among them, there are three major factors that must be grasped, namely temperature, humidity and feed.

Snails like warm and humid environments, but cannot tolerate extreme heat or soaking. In particular, they have the habit of dormancy. When snails encounter adverse conditions such as low temperature, extreme heat, lack of food and water, they will automatically secrete mucus, form a membrane, seal the shell, stop eating and sleeping. This is an important means of survival for snails to resist adversity and protect themselves, but for farmers, it is not a good thing for snails to hibernate and stop growing. Therefore, in the process of breeding snails, it is very important to scientifically control temperature and humidity. Taking the breeding of white jade snails as an example, generally speaking, the required temperature is best controlled between 25-35 degrees Celsius. The humidity of the soil is between 30%-40%, and the relative humidity of the air is between 80-90%.

Let's look at the feed for snails. Snails are omnivorous animals, so they are generally fed with green feed such as various vegetables, broad-leaved leaves, aquatic plants, etc., supplemented with a small amount of concentrated feed. The snail's appetite is relatively small, generally 5% of its own body weight, and it is sufficient to feed it once a day, but it should be noted that the individual sizes of snails should be adjusted after a period of time. At the same time, the feeding time should also be appropriate. Because snails are nocturnal creatures, feeding too early will affect the freshness of the feed, and feeding too late will miss the best time for it to eat, so it is generally best to feed in the evening.

For white jade snails, the proportion and dosage of feed are different according to their age. Snails under one month old are collectively called young snails. At this time, the snails are delicate, with thin shells, poor adaptability, and weak digestive system functions. Their feed should be mainly fresh, juicy, and easily digestible green feed. After two weeks, you can add a little concentrated feed appropriately, but don't add bone meal or shell powder and other mineral feed too early, otherwise it will easily harden the shells of the small snails too early and they won't grow.

Snails aged 2-5 months are at their peak growth period, so they are called growing snails. They have a strong appetite, large food intake and rapid growth. At this time, when feeding snails, special attention should be paid to the reasonable combination of green feed accounting for 95% and concentrated feed accounting for 5%. At the same time, the amount of concentrated feed should be increased gradually from a small amount to a large amount, so that the snails have an adaptation process.

Snails that are 3-4 months old and weigh about 35-40 grams can be sold as commercial snails. When they are over 5 months old, most white jade snails have reached sexual maturity. From these snails, those with high reproduction rates are selected and cultivated into breeding snails. The scientificity of the breeding snail feed is one of the important factors that determine how many eggs it lays and the quality of the eggs. At this time, it is necessary to feed more fresh, juicy, high-quality green fodder with high chlorophyll content, and additives containing plant protein, animal protein, calcium and other certain proportions. Generally, during the breeding period of white jade snails, it is necessary to control the proportion of green fodder to 90% and concentrated feed to 10%. Of course, if you want to expand the scale of breeding, you must also master the breeding and hatching technology of snails.

Snails are hermaphroditic animals that can produce sperm and eggs at the same time when mature, but their own sperm and eggs cannot combine, and they must exchange sperm with others to achieve the purpose of fertilization. Therefore, although they are hermaphroditic animals, different individuals still need to mate with each other to reproduce offspring.

Snails usually mate at dusk or dawn, and the mating time is generally 2-4 hours. During this period, breeders should be careful not to disturb or alarm them, let alone separate them to avoid injury. Do not pour water on them to avoid stimulation that will terminate fertilization and cause mating failure. Different snail species have different egg-laying conditions. Generally, breeding snails are eliminated after two years, because only by constantly renewing the breeding snails can they continuously produce eggs of high quality and quantity, laying a good foundation for improving the hatching rate of eggs.

So how do baby snails hatch?

Take some uncontaminated soil and sand, mix them evenly to make hatching soil. Pay attention to the humidity of the soil when mixing. Generally, you can use your hands to knead the soil into a ball, loosen your hands and shake it gently, and the soil ball will be scattered. Spread the mixed hatching soil in a plastic basin or canning bottle. Then use a small spoon to gently dig out the eggs and place them on the hatching soil. After the eggs are placed, cover them with a layer of wet gauze. The wet gauze should not drip water. Finally, press the glass plate, write the hatching date, and make a production record.

The suitable air humidity in the white jade snail hatching room is: 80%-90%; the suitable temperature is: 25-32 degrees Celsius.

If the relative humidity of the air is insufficient, or if the gauze in the basin is dry, you should remove the gauze and soak it in water without dripping. Otherwise, if the wet cloth is too wet or water drips on the eggs, it will cause the death of the eggs. In order to ensure the humidity required for egg hatching, it is required to soak the gauze once a day.

Under suitable temperature and humidity conditions, the little snails will hatch in 7-12 days. After the young snails are hatched, they should be taken out in time and placed in a breeding basin. At this time, because their shells are very delicate and easy to break, be careful not to grab them with your hands. The simple and easy way is to spread vegetable leaves on the hatching soil, and the little snails will actively climb onto the leaves. In this way, we can safely take out the young snails.

Snails like to eat tender and juicy food, such as cucumbers and lettuce. Moreover, snails are hermaphrodites.

First of all, don't put the snail in a place where it is exposed to sunlight. Because snails don't like sunlight.